Reflections 23: Winter Storm

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ~John Ruskin

Share a story about a severe winter storm.

There hasn't been one anywhere near me. I will keep my eye out though.

~Andie~

Reflections 22: First Job

If you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way. ~Homer Simpson

Tell me about your first job.

My first job would arguably be cleaning Granny and Papa's house, and babysitting cousins and stuff like that. But if you want to get technical, my first job was at Big League Burger Sports Bar and Grill.

It was kind of absurd that we called it "sports bar and grill", since we had no bar, so it was familiarly known around town as Big League Burgers.

The first time that I ever ate there, Dad noticed that there was a sign that said Help Wanted, so he made me apply. Jarrod and Royce worked most of their way through High School, but Amber and I did more odd jobs for family than anything else. I filled out an application to get Dad off my case, and they called me back.

This was right after I started dating my High School boyfriend, Andrew. I remember he came out to wish me good luck on my first day.

I worked there about a year and a half--it was a good job, and it made me happy. I got good tips, and people were generally nice to me. I would always accept shifts when offered because it was so much fun. Amber worked there for a while with me, and Barbara did as well.

The cook, Tahlia, would make me special meals all the time--crab pasta salad (with a vinigrette, NO mayo!), and buffalo chicken wraps...I could always trust her to surprise me and never trick me with anything disgusting. I did try everything on the menu, which was fabulous. Mike, my boss, was really nice, but Mark was a dillweed. Luckily he left half way through to move to California.

Sometimes, it was slow, and so another waitress--Julie--taught us how to cross stitch, which was a lot of fun. Amanda was going to teach us how to tat (make lace), but I left for college before that happened. Julie also made me a stain glass camel for Christmas, which was wonderful.

Reflections 21: Chores

Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you don't do it. ~Author Unknown

Housework, if it is done right, can kill you. ~John Skow

What chores did you have to do when you were growing up? Did you get an allowance? How much was it?

We did NOT get paid for helping out around the house, lol.

Mom and Dad divided the house into four chore areas, besides keeping our bedrooms clean, which was our responsibility any way.

The first was the living room and dining room; the second was the bathroom; the third was the kitchen; and the fourth was trash.

I got lucky, because I didn't have to take out trash--couldn't carry it. Bathroom was the next worst, unless you really hated doing dishes, like I did. Living room was the best, but boy, were we going to complain about it no matter which chore we had.

Laundry I can't remember how that got done so I assume my mother did it for me....

I really just don't have much to say on the topic of chores, I guess!!

~Andie~

Reflections 20: Pets

The difference between friends and pets is that friends we allow into our company, pets we allow into our solitude. ~Robert Brault

What was the name of your favorite pet? Why was it your favorite?

When it comes to pets and people, it is really hard to pick favorites. I had lots of pets growing up, and all of them were special to me for different reasons.

When I was really small, we had a dog named Bear (girl dog, and she was black, but I don't remember much about her), and we each had a kitten--Amber had Smoosh, Jarrod had Tom, and I had Scratch. They were sibling kittens that came from Mom's big mama cat Seal. Scratch was wonderful, but came to an untimely end.

Sassi Rose was the next pet I can remember--my parents got her for my 11th birthday, and she was a pretty little Siamese kitten. Sassi got pregnant A LOT, and I named a lot of her kittens too--Skye, Eeyore, Pooh, Snickers, Houston, Skittles, Tigger....

I kept a kitten from Sassi's last litter named Mr. Peanuts. He was a sandy colored tabby cat that was wonderful, but he ran away after 5 or so years of living with me. After Mr. Peanuts, I got my final cats at my parent's house--Serendipity (who was sandy colored like Mr Peanuts) and Tigger Jones (TJ, who was a dark tabby). They still live at my parent's house, and they are wonderful because they don't use a litter box, but go to the door and go outside to poo.

Other pets that were not cats, lol:

I only personally had one dog, named Pope Dickens but familiarly called Butters. He was a blonde cocker spaniel and he is sweet peaches. He lives with Mom and Dad too.

Amber and I shared Star, the Dalmatian. My brothers had Checkers, and Dad had Stripes, which were Star's brothers. Unfortunately, they were born with a disease from their mother, and both boys died. Star survived but was kind of a dumb dog. She had 6 puppies, and we found them all homes, except Chance, who we kept :)

But the other family dogs that we had were Tess--a wondrously big and awesome German Shepherd/Huskie mix-- and Heiney, a little black dog with curly black hair that got hit by a train :( Savannah was mom's sheltie, but she was loved by the whole family, just like Hercules was though he was Royce's. Dad and the boys both got Blue Heelers at one point--Rodeo and Bandit--who were awesome dogs. The family had a cocker spaniel named Dusty, but someone ran him over.

Poppyseed was a Shetland pony that me and my 3 siblings shared. She was nasty tempered but a sweet horse. We also had Nicodemus the quarter horse and April the appaloosa.

We had three goats--Bridget, Gretchen, and Heidi.

I used to show chickens for 4H--I had 25, but only 2 survived the winter :( Savannah killed over half of them. Argyle and Lego went to live on a farm when I was worried they were going to get killed by the dogs.

I also showed bunnies--Stamp, BamBam, and Harvey were my favorites, all boys. At one show, I also picked up a cavie named Mousekiwitz. When Pawpaw didn't want to breed rabbits any more, I inherited 19 bunnies (all of them with names, but that's too many to list), but I went out of town and Tess got in there and killed every one of them except Amie Christina.

When we had Harvey the bunny, we got a gosling named Lucy the Goosey. Harvey smothered her to death with his big bunny chest accidentally. At the feed store, they had goslings, chicks, and ducklings for pretty cheap, so my parents bought us four ducks and dug a duck pond out front. I can't remember my duck's name, but he fell off the roof :(

Amber had a sheep named September that I loved.

One Easter, Jarrod and I bought a rat named Dr. Aaron Hunter. I adored that rat, so when I went to college, we gave him to a middle school science classroom. He lives happily there, getting fed stuff from the kids lunches. He never bit, he was so wonderful.

I THINK that is most of my pets. I will probably remember more later.

If you want my real favorite, I would probably say Jabba the Guinea Pig--I got him when I was 19, and he helped me through 2 pregnancies, and early motherhood. He was an amazing pet.

~Andie!~

Really Important!!!

This is breaking from the Reflections posts I have been putting lately, but as the title said...it is REALLY IMPORTANT!!

Noodle-y stuff.

I forgot to put it on the last post, but it's like...dude--noodle-y stuff.

We weren't always a'rollin' in the dough, so my Mom had to improvise some days for inexpensive meals. One day, she had those penne noodles and some rotel....so she made "noodle-y stuff". She wasn't certain about it, but it turned out really good. So next time, she got fancy and threw a handful of cheese in there...so it was "cheese-y noodle-y stuff".

Just awesome.

Had to share =)

~Andie~

Reflections 19: Favorite Meals

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. ~Voltaire

What was your favorite meal when you were a child? What made it your favorite?

Okay, I am going to try and scale this back, but there were a LOT of meals that I really loved that my Mommy and Daddy and Granny made for me.

1) Mashed potatoes with hamburger gravy. Freaking delicious. My mom makes the best mashed potatoes, I don't know why mine are crap comparatively. I also really love mashed potatoes and hamburger patties with Worcestershire sauce all over the hamburger. Fantastic.

2) Bubbles and Squeak was this dish my mom usually made in her gigantic cast-iron skillet. When I was growing up, I heard those jokes of beating your husband with a skillet when he f's up, and I always thought mom could really kill dad with that slugger of a skillet. Anyways, bubble and squeak is Eckridge sausage, cabbage, and potatoes all..skillet-ed together. It's wondrous.

3) Taco salad, which is super different than the one Michael grew up with. It was Doritos, catalina dressing, ranch style beans, lettuce...I think there was some other stuff in there too, but I was a big fan.

4) Spanish rice--I didn't appreciate this as much until recently, but my dad would make regular Spanish rice, then load it down with hamburger and velveeta and rotel. We would eat it rolled up in corn tortillas or with chips, and it was so so spicy that we couldn't eat it, but so delicious that we couldn't stop, lol.

5) Tamale casserole--another one of dad's creations, it was tamales and corn tortillas (for some reason...), and chili and onions and cheese...soooooo goood.

6) Cabbage Rolls were my Great Grandmother's specialty, and she made them every time she came into town. They were soft pastries stuffed with cabbage and maybe hamburger...I loved them so so very much.

7) Chili. My parents grew their own vegetables and seasonings out in the yard. It was really awesome...anyways, Mom went out of town when we were little and Dad took out this party sized pot and made chili with fresh cilantro, which was surprising and delicious. Mom was gone for a week, and we ate that chili for at least two meals a day, every day, until Mom got back, lol.

8) Spaghetti was really awesome, but Mom would bring in Spaghetti Squash from her garden and we would have the sauce over the stringy squash. Delicious. Which brings me to--Fried Squash. That is alllll the hell yeah.

9) Venison! Venison steaks, venison sausage, venison jerky, venison spaghetti, venison shepherd's pie......Papa and Uncle Robbie and my cousins would all go hunting, even Amber went at one point...and they would bring home tons of deer and turkey....mmmm, I grew up on venison

10) Last one (I hope): Summer sausage, smoked out on the smoker, with crackers and cheese. Classic and oh so fantastic.

I will stop there, but now I am just starving and I need to go call my mama for recipes =) Other meals I can think of that I won't talk about yet are hobo dinners, homemade salsa, goulash, fried potatoes and cornbread, stew, tacos with raspberry sauce, and eating out at Taco Bueno and Ponchos!!

~Andie~

Reflections 18: Senses

Nothing can cure the soul better than the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul--Oscar Wilde

What scent or sound immediately takes you back to childhood? Describe the feeling it evokes.

Okay, the first thing that comes to mind is going to be completely goofy, but it's true--ask any of my siblings....

The word "Kapeesh" immediately makes my mouth start watering for Mexican food, lol. It makes me feel like a little girl again.

When we were little, there was an all you can eat Mexican buffet called Ponchos. It was our favorite as a family, even though it wasn't the best food in the whole world. But it was easiest to feed four kids with healthy appetites at an "all you can eat" over a traditional restaurant. Not to mention, it was free to take little kids, and cheap to take kids.

Anyways, until I was older, it was always a bit of a drive to get to Ponchos. We would get there, and before Dad would let us out of the car, he would turn around and say, "Mind your P's and Q's, kapeesh?".

I am going to throw this out there...I don't think a one of us knows what that phrase even means, besides meaning that we are about to eat so much Mexican food, we may very well explode.

OTHER than that...

The smell of WD40 or gasoline makes me think of my Daddy, and the smell of labs and science buildings (not exactly sure what makes the exact smell) reminds me of my Mom.

Some music has very strong associations with them--Collective Soul and Queen and AC-DC and ZZTop will always remind me of my Daddy's shop. I listen to them now very much. For my mother, Beach Boys and songs like "Sugar Pie Honey Bunch", "I'm in a Hurry", and "Witch Doctor" make me think of her. Listening to Elvis makes me think of my Granny; Dolly Parton for Grandma Pat.

I link a whole lot of smells and sounds to my life, it's kind of hard to narrow it down, but I think that's a good compilation.

~Andie~

Reflections 17: School

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. ~Aristotle

How far did you have to travel to attend elementary, junior high, and high school, and how did you get there?

If I was more of a smart-aleck, I would start talking about how I had to trudge to school five miles in the snow, uphill both ways, :-P

As it is, school was no more than 5 miles away--really not that far at all. Elementary school, I rode the bus or one of my parents dropped me off.

When I started in on junior high, sixth grade was next door to the elementary. I probably still rode the bus, but I can't remember exactly. That was the old Middle School.

In 7th grade, however, the new Middle School/High School for our town was built. Up until it was built, there was no high school for my hometown--8th graders graduated then left and went to neighboring towns for high school. My brothers' graduating class was actually the first in our town's history. Anyways, so my 7th grade was at the new High School, which was considerably closer to home--only about a mile, mile and a half from home. In 8th grade, we were sent to the new Middle School (which was built during my 7th grade year), which is right up next to the High School. Then high school was just in the high school all four years.

I really truly loved my school, my whole experience there =)

~Andie~

Reflections 16: Valentine

When love is not madness, it is not love. ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Describe a memorable Valentine you received.

Granny and Papa always got me those little heart shaped boxes of chocolates with the cute picture on the cover, plus cute socks or whatever. At my high school, the Student Council would sell carnations--colored coded like red is "love", pink is "like", yellow is "friend", and white is "miscellaneous". Anyways, they were a dollar a piece, and they would sell them all week before Valentines Day, and then go into your classes and hand them out on the day of. I always got a couple on those days =)

I think the most memorable Valentine that I have ever received thus far was one from my husband, Michael.

My friend, Michaela, is a milliner--she makes hats. It takes her forever, since she has to first knit the hat some four times bigger than it is going to be in the end. Then she felts it down until it's just the way she wants it, and finally adds embellishments. Some hats take her more than 17 hours to complete!!

Anyways, Michael knew that I was really wanting one of her hats, so for one Valentines day, he surprised me with a gorgeous gray hat that had a large red button surrounded by gray fluff on it. I am really attached to it now, and hope to get several more some day.

Reflections 15: Bible

The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed. --Thomas Paine

Who gave you your first Bible and how old were you when you received it? How did it influence your life?

My first Bible probably came at birth, to be honest. But there are three Bibles that were really special to me.

The first was a Children's Read-With-Me Bible that I got on my sixth birthday from my Aunt Cindy and Uncle Ted. It had the most fun cartoon pictures to go with the stories, and I must have read it a hundred times. Now, I read it to my children some nights.They seem to like it a whole lot =)

The second was a Bible I got for my graduation from High School. My grandparent's got it for me--it was that rich, church-y wine color that was my favorite for so long. It had my name in gold letters in the lower right hand side...I know it's stupid, but I really thought that Bible was beautiful. The one before it was the same color, but much thinner, which Granny and Papa had gotten me for Christmas when I was 13. Anyways, the big one was the one I took to college, and it had study guides and historical background information, and looked into the cultural aspects and literary elements used...I found it fascinating and very helpful, and I used it until I accidentally spilled water on it :( Now it's all warped and kept in a special place so it doesn't get more ruined.

The last Bible that has been meaningful to me was the Bible Michael got me when I had my first baby--it's purple and hardcover and it's a "Mother's Bible". It has devotionals and notable verses marked that might help a mother. I really like it. That's the Bible I have used for the last 3 years :)

~Andie!~

Reflections 14: Christianity

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The only thing that it cannot be is moderately important."--C.S. Lewis

When did you become a Christian? How did your life change?

I consider myself born a Christian, but since it is not an inherited trait but rather a decision, the moment I became a Christian was probably baptism.

My brothers and sister were all baptized right in a row--like 9, 10, 11 or something to that extent. So everyone turned their attention to me, expecting me to follow the rest of my siblings and dive right into the baptistry.

But anyone that knows me is that I tend to dig in my heels when it comes to what I am "expected" to do.

I wasn't just being stubborn--I just didn't get it. I mean, I didn't want to promise my life to a religion just because my family had told me that it was the right thing to do. I guess I could have at some point thought, well--it doesn't matter...either it is the way to salvation, or it's not...if it is, then I have that check mark next to my name; and if it's not, no skin off my back. But I didn't think I was qualified to make that decision yet.

The worst part was feeling the pressure--family was expecting me to do it and talking to me about it was bad enough....but during the invitation song, members of the church started turning around to see if I was running down the aisle. Everyone felt it was their job to ask me why I wasn't, and if there was anything to help convince me. I started feeling like I was "dirty", soiled...that people wouldn't want to be near me because I wasn't saved.

But countless people, with looks of utter concern, would ask me if I wanted to go to heaven...that if Christ came back today, I would not be chosen to be saved; that I was on the route to going to hell. I prayed every night in choking sobs for God not to let me die or for Him to come back until I was saved because I was scared out of my mind of going to hell.

When I finally did reach the decision, I was so resentful of my church and my family for putting me through that torment based on how THEY interpreted an ancient and complex text with little more knowledge then what they had been told in their own lifetimes. I hated them for it. They were telling their kids to shun me, that I was going to hell because I wasn't saved...and they couldn't even prove it!

I still hurt to this day over how they made me feel.

Anyways, spring break my freshman year in college, after studying under one of the best teachers I ever had--Dr. Crawford--I went home and got baptized. I remember coming back and telling Michael...it was drizzling and he looked genuinely puzzled because he hadn't known that I was unbaptized.

Forgive the over-emotion, but this is kind of a sore spot for me. But there it is--the story of me becoming a Christian.

~Andie~

Reflections 13: God

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. ~St. Augustine

Who was the first person to talk to you about God? What effect did this have on you?

This is a weird question for me....I mean, everyone has talked to me about God for as long as I can remember. Every single person in my family talks about God every day. About prayer, about how we see Him at work in our lives, about how He will see us or those we know through hard times.

Mom used to sing church songs to me to settle me down at night, and to wake me up in the morning. Even Tim, who I have always considered a heathen, would play Christian music in the car for us.

So, as I said--kind of a weird question for me. There are one conversation that has always stuck out to me though:

One day, I asked Daddy about denominations, what made us "church of Christ". Of all my family members, he is probably the least "churchy", though he is religious. He explained the history of the church of Christ and objectively told me what we believe. Then he told me that I couldn't let everyone else tell me what I believe, but to search for the answers myself.

I never forgot that conversation, and I have held it dear--it means that I have argued with professors, asking them the tough questions, and it also means that I have disappointed and frustrated my family on occasion. Specifically over my choice to wait on baptism. But that's neither here nor there. As it is, I am getting to know who I am and what I believe, and that brings me closer to God then I was before =)

~Andie~

Reflections 12: Great Grandparents

For all of us, today's experiences are tomorrow's memories--Barbara Johnson

Share a memory of your grandparents or an older person that you loved.

I figure this is a good place to talk about my great-grandmothers, who I knew most of my life thus far.

Nana was my Granny's mother, and she was fun and a little spastic. She was such a little thing--so small and delicate, like my Granny, but possessing absurd amounts of energy and a bit of a temper :) She always asked us hard questions to make us think, and never shied away from the tough questions either. She would talk to us about whether or not aliens or angels or demons existed, what we believed about the afterlife, near death experiences....she always had such interesting insights! She was always so very happy to see us, as we were to see her. She had a twin sister that I cannot remember ever having met, but was cool never the less. She passed away when I was 19 years old.

Grandma was Papa's mother, and she lived a couple states away in Colorado. We loved visiting her when I was growing up--it is so different from Texas. She had a basement in her house, where she kept all her dolls and we would hang out. This one doll, she called "Baby No Name", and that's the one I remember. She also collected Madam Alexander dolls, and loved things with butterflies on them. She taught us how to play poker and make cabbage rolls and do so many things. She had the most wonderful laugh in the world, and sparkly blue grandma eyes. She was very much like my mother, and she got along with everyone--she never judged, she just listened. She passed away more recently (when I turned 23), so memories are more poignant....

Reflections 11: Grandparent's Houses

I loved their home. Everything smelled older, worn but safe; the food aroma had baked itself into the furniture. ~Susan Strasberg

Describe your grandparents' houses. Did you visit them often? Why or why not?

Grandparent houses are such magical places!!

Granny and Papa's house when I was a child was in town near us, and we would go there many Sundays, plus often just for visits. They had a gigantic evergreen tree out in the front yard, and a plum tree around the side of the house. Behind it, there was the garage and the swing-set, and a dune buggie we could play in. On the other side of the house was two horses we liked to pet--we called them Sunrise and Midnight because one was red and the other was black.

Their glass door would make rainbows on the tile floor, and everything was so warm and comfortable.

When I was about 11, they moved into a bigger house. This one was way out in the country, so there was lots of land to run around on. They had several horses--Fancy (the only girl), Tucker, Murray, Pete, and Levi--that we could ride, although I am pretty scared of horses. There were three dogs--Ringo, Rex, and Patches, and they were sweet doggies. Right next door was Robbie and Alice, which was wonderful--that meant we could visit them all at the same time!

Granny's house was two stories, with rich green carpet and crosses everywhere. Granny always had really good taste in decorating. There's the computer room down stairs, two bedrooms and a playroom upstairs. Lots of places to run around.

Pat and Pawpaw's house we visited less often, but it was really nice. Pat insisted that we take good care of her house--we always take our shoes off at the door, and we only colored in certain places, while being watched. Everything was so beautiful--done in soft grays and peaches. The carpet was always really clean and plush, and she had a big glass coffee table that always threatened to bonk the babies noggin's.

Sometimes, us four would go over to her house to spend the night--she would set up a big pallet on the floor in her room and we would all watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or California Raisins until we fell asleep.

Down the hall, they had a toy room, and then the exercise room--in the exercise room, they had one wall that was entirely made up of mirrors, which was so much fun to see!

Reflections 10: Home

Love begins at home--Mother Teresa

Where was your childhood home located? Did you enjoy living there?

I enjoyed living there very much. It was a place where me and my siblings felt safe, where we could ride our bikes up and down the street without having to worry, where we had plenty of room to run and climb trees and just be kids.

It was really great, not having to move around a whole lot while growing up either. The kids I started Kindergarten with were a lot of the kids that I graduated high school with as well. I knew a lot of people in my hometown, which was wonderfully nice. I felt safe there. Security is a big need of mine, and being surrounded by people you know and trust...it's wonderful.

My siblings and I were really spoiled--all our families lived nearby. Since being married and having our families so far apart, I realized how lucky were were.

~Andie~

Reflections 9: Prayers

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.--Mahatma Ghandi

What kind of prayer did you say before you went to sleep? Who taught you how to pray it?

My mother and my church taught me how to pray, but I always felt I was doing it wrong.

See, talking to God was an all day thing to me. I would talk to Him about everything that I thought, saw, heard, wondered about, or experienced. I never stopped talking to him. So prayers didn't have a beginning or an end--they just had a "I'll talk to you tomorrow, goodnight".

The way I was taught to pray had a definite structure, but didn't hold my interest long, so I kind of...improv-ed it.

~Andie~

Reflections 8: Living Room

Describe what the family living room looked like when you were a child.

There were zero good "living room" quotes :-D

Our living room was straight in the front door--you literally walked off the porch into the living room.

The furniture, and indeed the room itself, changed a lot while I was growing up, but when I was a child, it had that ugly brown carpet and wood paneling. We had a big television because Daddy said that we blocked him from seeing, teehee. We had a long couch that was not big enough for six people, but that's okay because half of us generally sat on the floor any way. It was hard to get all of us in one place. We had a surround sound and stereo, which made the noise SOOO loud in there. It was next to my bedroom--just a wall separating the rooms--so I usually fell asleep to the sound of Mom and Dad watching MASH. The theme song--"Suicide Is Painless"--is still very calming to me.

When we were sick, Mom and Dad would have us sleep in the living room so we wouldn't make anyone else sick. They had this big ol' bucket to sit next to us so we wouldn't have to run to the bathroom to vomit. But anyways, on those nights, we would lay up and watch MASH with Daddy (mom usually fell asleep).

As a child, there was a wall separating the dining room from the living room, but later on they knocked that wall down and it was just one big open space.

Reflections 7: Mother

If you have a mom, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been. ~Robert Brault

How did your mother spend her day? Did she have a job or do volunteer work outside the home?

This shows the age of the writer of this journal, lol.

My mother went to college when I was just a little girl. It was pretty impressive, her getting her bachelors in Microbiology when she had four kids under the age of 7.

After she graduated, she started working in labs as a lab tech--basically, she looks at the blood, urine, and stool samples collected at the doctor's offices, and tells the doctors what is wrong with the patient.

Her labs have this amazing smell--you would think that it would smell like crap (*giggles* pun intended), but it has this very clean smell; all the disinfectants and giant machines that are running constantly. It feels weird there, too--some places are very chilly, where the air conditioner is blowing that odd, but interesting, smell on you, making the goosebumps raise on your arms. But near the incubator, it is warmer. You don't want to hang out near the incubator because that's where bacteria and viruses are growing, but it is a little warm island in the middle of the chilly room.

She would sometimes bring me to work--one particular time, I remember that she took me to work because my pediatrician's office was right next door to her work. My doctor said I was the most cheerful person with a 103 degree fever he'd met :)

That was right at my 13th birthday--he gave me some big pink pills to take, and I slept under Mom's desk for the rest of the day.

She had some cool co-workers too. Paul was this cute, but very gay, guy that taught me how to steal snacks from the vending machines in the break room. He was a sweet fella.

She was still very active volunteering at my school and church though. She always had a week's worth of things to do every day. But she was always there for us :)

Reflections 7: Father

The father who would taste the essence of his fatherhood must turn back from the plane of his experience, take with him the fruits of his journey and begin again beside his child, marching step by step over the same old road. ~Angelo Patri

Where did your father go to work every day and what did he do?

Daddy worked as a grease monkey, a mechanic. He was really really good, too. He had been doing it since he was 16 or so, so he had a lot of experience.

He worked at several car dealerships while I was growing up, none of which I remember very clearly. He seemed to like his job, like working. He was always fixing up cars at home, letting me read instructions from his manuals to him, even though he didn't really need my help. His shop was full of the neatest tools: big shiny red tool boxes filled with the dozens of sets of screwdrivers my siblings and I got him every Christmas; the smell of WD40 in the air; a great big cherry picker....

He has never stopped working on cars or being interested in them, though he got too sick to work when I was 11 or so.

Reflections 6: Church

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching--Ralph Waldo Emerson

When did you first go to church? What are your earliest memories of church?

I have been going to church since I was 10 days old.

My Papa helped build the Church of Christ in my home town, and I went there until I left for college. I still consider it my home church, and go there whenever I find myself back home. When I was growing up, church was everything to me. It was friends, family, a place to go and be happy and be with God. I would lie to my mom and tell her I was not sick so that I could go to church. I adored the singing so very much, loved classes, and liked the sermons. I have a very good memory for information, so Biblical trivia was always a lot of fun for me.

As I got older, I got more and more involved in the Church. When I was 15 or so, I was at the church 5-6 days of the week, for service projects or to help out around the building, devotionals, church services....in the summer, we would go to Summer Youth Series (SYS); the spring would have Leadership Training for Christ (LTC)...before the fall semester of school started back up, we would go to Camp Deer Run (where the deer run, lol). I mean, we spent most of our time and effort invested in the church.

Now, I don't go nearly as often as I want to. I became very disillusioned with the church and I am trying to regain my enthusiasm to go back. It is hard, but I really do want my children to have the joy that I had being involved in the family of God growing up.

~Andie~

Reflection 5: Baptism

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink-- 1st Corinthians 12: 13

Were you baptized or dedicated as an infant? If so, where and by whom?

Short answer--no.

Longer answer--I am of the denomination Church of Christ.

Aside: no, we are not a cult.

Back to my long answer, Church of Christ (or at least those that I have been part of) do not routinely practice infant baptisms or dedications. They believe that a baptism is a decision that should be made when a person is of age to take on Christ and is ready to follow on the Narrow Way.

I was not baptized into Christ until I was 18. It was....kind of a big ordeal, as it was. But that is neither here nor there.

The short answer, once again, was that I was not baptized or dedicated to the church as an infant.

~Andie~

Reflections 4: Bedroom

A bedroom requires a bed. Everything else was extravagance. Well, he had a bed all right.--Audrey Meadows

Describe your childhood bedroom. What was the view like from your window?

My room changed a lot over the years, so I will tell you what I remember.

We moved into the house I grew up in when I was six years old. Amber and I shared a room until she went off to college, which I never really minded. I mean, she liked sleeping with a LOT of light--sometimes the closet light, sometimes a fish aquarium bulb burning all night--while I preferred pitch black, but overall, she was not a bad roommate.

When I was really young, our room theme was Crayola crayons.

Amber and I shared a red metal bunk-bed--I generally had the top bunk, and she mostly kept the bottom, since the bottom bed was bigger and she was older. Our blankets were multi-colored crayons with the triangular points at the bottom and everything. Our fan blades were crayons too. We had a red metal stuffed animal shelf thing...it had white writing on it, but I can't remember what it said....anyways. Our toys were kept in a toy box that my Uncle Robbie had made for us--it had Andra, Jarrod, and Amber in wooden letters on it, and it was red with stickers of teddy bears with balloons on it.

The floor was carpeted in an ugly but soft brown. The closet was shallow but wide--two doors. We used to play "Sonic the Hedgehog" in the room, jumping from the furniture and balancing on the doorknobs of the closet and bedroom doors. We are so lucky we didn't seriously hurt ourselves, lol.

When I got older, Uncle Robbie made us captain's beds, where there are three drawers under the bed. We painted the walls this really bright, almost electric blue.

Generally speaking, we moved the furniture around a lot, so my view changed a lot. We had two windows in the room--one looked out over the street we lived on, and the front yard. It was really nice, because we could see people coming and going, see the trees....the second faced south, looking into the thick foliage of our neighbors yard. Their house was quite a ways away from our house, so we didn't see it from the window, but we did see the fence and trees and their animals coming and going.

My parents sold that house a few years after I went off to college, and we haven't been back since.

~Andie~

Reflections 3: Name

Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior. ~Logan Pearsall Smith

Who gave you your name and why? Did you have a family nickname? How did you get it?

I feel like I have told my name story a hundred times, since I talk about names so often online... :)

I was the third child, the second girl. My mother wanted to name me Alexandra Rose or Alexandra Renae. Renae is her middle name. Alexandra is the feminine form of Alexander, meaning "Defender of Mankind". Mom wanted to name me this so that she could call me Alex. She liked unisex names on girls--another name she liked was Dusty Rose.

While in labor, my biological father Tim said he did not care for the names Mom had picked out. He didn't want me to be called by a boy's name, so he wanted to honor a family friend with my name--Andra. The funny part is, Andra is a Scottish male name that means "manly, virile".

Tim won out, and I became Andra Renae, which has been a bit of a headache--no one can pronounce it or spell it correctly, which means I am forever correcting people. But I grew to kind of like it. I rarely am called Andra, but you know...still there for important documents and such.

My Aunt Cindy decided to nickname me Andie, getting inspiration from Andie McDowell, who was a 1980's actress/model. It still gave me the unisex name that mom wanted. The nickname stuck--I go by Andie most of the time :)

Interesting note: if I had been a boy, Mom was thinking that my name would have been Chesley Vallon or Michael Craig.

~Andie~

Reflections 2: Favorite Pastime

"The beauty of the written word is that it can be held close to the heart and read over and over again"--Florence Littauer

What was your favorite pastime as a child? Did you prefer doing it alone or with someone else?

From the moment I learned how in Kindergarten, I have always loved reading. I remember the first book I read--I was so proud that I had learned how, that Mom (Oma) took me to Granny and Papa's house (Gigi and Papa). I crawled up in Granny's lap and read "Don't Wake Daddy". It was this oddly colored orange book that she had at her house.

I would dabble in most every genre, except for Science Fiction. I loved fantasy, historical fictions, nonfiction, everything....just not Sci-Fi. Who really knows why? I think I like having a more definable universe, and didn't much care for made up words, but that is neither here nor there.

After that, I would read everything I could get my hands on. Mom had her books from college and I would read from her English textbook, her Biology and Microbiology books. I would carry books everywhere with me: to family holidays, to school, to bed.

When I got older, Amber and I would have reading races--we would check out a lot of the same books from the library, and we would see who could read them faster. Mostly, new Harry Potter (JK Rowling) books or the Goosebumps (RL Stein) series. Amber and I could take down a Goosebumps book in a little over a half hour.

Now, I still read as much as I can. My tastes have shifted somewhat--mostly I focus on Jude Deveraux's, who is my favorite author, but I still will read whatever I have available. We have boxes and boxes of books that just can't fit into our house. Every night, I read out-loud to Michael (Daddy). This started a year ago when I read his favorite book aloud to him, "I, Jedi" by Michael A. Stackpole. Now we have started in on the Dark Tower series by Stephen King--"Wizard and Glass".

I doubt very much that my love for reading will ever change, honestly.

~Andie~