Author: jenzug

Diary of a Kansas Wedding

I am back from the land of Maxwell House coffee. My sister actually told the couple who served us the rehearsal dinner, “Could you please make the coffee a little more like coffee house coffee, and a little less like church coffee?” I appreciated her effort, because strong Maxwell House coffee is much better tasting.

My nephew’s wedding was very sweet with just the right amount of pink and softness, and it was in a beautiful old Mennonite church on the Kansas prairie. Isn’t this dreamy?…

Wedding Chapel on the Kansas prairie

I was sad at times that Ruthie wasn’t with me to hang out with all her cousins, but being kid-less also meant I could be put to hard labor setting up the church and putting it back together again. When I called home on Friday morning to tell her I was decorating the church, she said, “I wish I was there to help you!” Proof that leaving her at home was the right decision!

Hard labor was my task, because after I tried countless times to tie a wired ribbon bow I remembered why I left all the foofie stuff up to my best friend at my own wedding. My sister-in-law, Nicole, was the bow master.

bows

It’s not often that my brother and sister and I find ourselves in the same place all at once. I think the last time this happened was at Gordy’s funeral in 2005, and before that at my wedding in 2001. It was fun to catch up together, lounge by the hot tub, play games in the hotel’s family room, and document how many different conversations about football can take place within a 24 hour period. I am now schooled on the finer points of who’s rank will go down if USC wins the next game. I think.

I even got into an intense political discussion with my dad and brother at dinner Saturday night, testing out my political awareness now that I’m no longer a political apathetic. I was enjoying myself and would have kept going down the checklist of issues, but my mom – She Who Cracks Under Intense Conflict – nervously pleaded for us to leave the restaurant.

I crashed in the same room as my mom and three teenagers – my niece, Kara; my nephew’s girlfriend, Karina; and Rodica, the Moldovan girl living with them (more on her later). We were packed in there, and the mess was messy (Rodica kept pointing out the boys’ room was not as messy), but we also stayed up late watching movies and talking about hair. Plus, the boys’ room was stinky.

crowded hotel room

I learned that my niece has a Facebook page. When I discovered this, I almost blurted out, “I’ll add you as my friend!” Then my brain got a hold of my tongue, reminding me that it is not cool to have your 36 year old chubby aunt as a friend on your Facebook page.

We also got a kick out of my seven year old nephew following my college age nephew around. Everywhere. Drew. Drew. Drew. That’s all Jake was about, was Drew. Fortunately, Drew is awesome, and the sort of magnetic personality that draws all seven year olds everywhere to himself. No wonder he’s majoring in elementary education. Also? Jake must have been jealous of Drew’s girlfriend, because he asked her, “Why do you follow him around so much?” Uh, backatcha?

cousin drew, cousin kara, cousin jake

My nephew, Jesse, is all grown up, and his new wife, Kaley, seems very sweet and confident and aware of what she wants. There was no bitchy stressed-out bride vibe coming from her at all. She was wonderful.

the happy couple

Besides drinking coffee from a can, I will leave you with the other clue that I wasn’t in Seattle anymore – a sign posted at the Wichita Airport’s baggage claim:

I'm not in seattle anymore

*Carry on, my wayward son…

I am in Kansas today, and boy is the terrain flat here. I can see for miles.

My nephew is getting married here on Saturday, so we skipped Thanksgiving. I spent the day on an airplane while Bryan and the kids ate pizza and beer with our friend, Jack. I can’t say that I’m disappointed, though, given my frustrating weight loss issues and such. I finally started to see the scale numbers drop so I’m glad I won’t have the frustration of both loving and despising the stuffing and yams I would have likely devoured.

I didn’t know what to do with myself on the trip out here, this being the first time I’ve flown solo in at least four years. No kids climbing all over me, or screaming, or demanding more food – and the mad dash I made to my connecting flight at the Denver airport (hi Beth!) from gate 8 to gate 56 would have done me in with two kids and all their paraphernalia in tow.

But currently it’s 2am local time and rumor has it I’m being put to work at 9am tomorrow decorating a church. So I think I will try to get past this time change and get some shut eye. More from the Heartland of America later.

*These are lyrics from a song by Kansas, but you are probably too young to know this. Or at least more hip than me.

I call it, Man-ffermations

B: My sweatshirt still smells like paintball paint.

J: Even after I washed it?

B: Yeah, see? Smell it –

J: Uh, no. I trust you.

B: No really, smell it.

J: Honey, I don’t need to smell it.

B: Just take a whiff!

J: Why does it matter so much that I smell your stinky sweatshirt???

B: Because I participated in a macho activity and I want you to smell my musk.

Worship in the Church: traditional or contemporary?

Staying home from church with Thomas this morning to avoid spreading the croup, I heard this interesting story on NPR’s weekend edition about the Southern Baptist Conference updating its hymnal with hundreds of contemporary praise songs written by famous recording artists like Michael W. Smith and Matt Redman.

Behind the scenes here at This Pile I’ve been thinking and writing about community, mission, and cultural relevance, so I found this story very timely to that train of thought. The SBC stipulates that including contemporary music in their hymnals will make them more relevant to young people, and will help draw new people into church.

But certain old-timers disagree.

An elderly woman interviewed – an arthritic piano player in a small church whose favorite hymn is The Old Rugged Cross – expresses her frustration with the watered down nature of most praise music, feeling that it doesn’t really say anything. She says the newer songs sing “praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord” over and over again, but she prefers the tried and true hymns because they tell a story.

T.W. Hunt, retired pastor and a member of the committee charged with approving new songs into the hymnal, agrees. He believes the contemporary worship songs don’t necessarily contradict good theology, they just don’t say much of anything at all. “I love the old hymns, because I think they are very good on theology. ‘My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness…’ That’s pretty good theology.”

It appears that cultural relevance is being pitted against good story telling and strong theology. So I wonder myself, is today’s church raising up shallow Christians as a result of creating a more appealing church experience? I worry that American pastors and worship leaders place the fear of man before the fear of God by catering to what they think people want to hear. Sure, more people will likely enter the doors of a church if their current world views are not too harshly challenged, but is the goal to fill churches with bodies or to fill churches with Christ followers?

I thought it was a very interesting and balanced story about the debate in the church today over how to reach new generations with the Gospel. I personally think there is value in being relevant to the culture, but not at the cost of diminishing the power of story and good theology. As more contemporary churches write new music, I would hope they would retain a solid theology and steer clear of emotional repetition and swelling music.

Sadly, I don’t think this is always the case.

Any thoughts?

Yesterday’s morning routine: a little coffee, a little blog reading, a frantic call to 911…

Thomas is a lazy slug who sleeps in late. Every morning that Ruthie has preschool, I have to wake him up in order for us all to leave in time. Usually I send Ruthie upstairs to tickle his ear – a sweet wake-up tradition I created after she burst into his room one morning, flicked on the overhead light, and shouted, “THOMAS! WAKE UP!” He was not happy about such a jolt, so now she whispers sweetly to him while tickling his ear.

I was sitting at the dining room table with my coffee and laptop, in the dark, waiting for Ruthie to accomplish her ear-tickling mission. Suddenly I heard gasping, choking sounds coming from Thomas and leaped up to find him half way down the stairs with a panicked look on his face (later I found my reading glass on the floor under the piano, where they landed as I threw them off). He was trying really hard to take a breath, but he couldn’t get enough air.

I could tell right away that he wasn’t choking on an object, but sounded sick, like he was having another respiratory attack of some kind. Even though I’d taken him to the emergency room last year for breathing difficulty, this time I was freaked out because he seemed to be actually choking for air.

I immediately called 911 and ran upstairs to get his nebulizer for an Albuterol treatment, but it had been a whole year since I used it and I couldn’t remember how all the pieces fit together. Just as the ambulance pulled up in front of the house, Thomas hacked up a giant ball of mucus – probably about 2-3 tablespoons in size – and then he quit gasping.

The medics stuck around for awhile to observe his breathing, and waited for me to get the nebulizer set up. Thomas was still laboring for breath, but his oxygen intake was at 99%, and after listening to his lungs the medic determined they were clear of any fluids – it was his upper airways that were congested, which is typical for a chest cold.

Later at the pediatrician he was diagnosed with the croup, which my kids get every year. I recognized the ‘barking seal’ cough when he woke up, but had never noticed any mucus during previous croup episodes. What obviously happened was that Thomas’ trachea and larynx were so inflamed with the croup that the giant ball of mucus couldn’t make it’s way out, causing his airways to become constricted.

It was a scary morning, but we all came out of it okay. Ruthie, once again, was a trooper under pressure. She was the adorable and chearful girl, standing on the front porch holding the door open for the medics, chatting with them as they came into the house. I kept hearing her say things like, “My name is Ruthie,” and “My mom’s in the kitchen,” and “Today is pajama day at preschool!”

Thomas, on the other hand, was not as cooperative. He hid under the kitchen table whenever I tried to give him a nebulizer treatment, and wouldn’t even look at the medics despite the fact that they were very toddler-friendly medics. I finally coaxed him out by asking if he thought Buzz Lightyear would like to wear a clip on his finger (the thingy that measures oxygen levels), and wouldn’t he like to wear a clip on his finger like Buzz Lightyear? God bless Pixar, because that boy crawled over to my lap and held up his cute little index finger. Go Buzz!

So that was how our Friday started, and now the Zugs are quarantined to the Zughaus for the duration of the weekend until this virus passes. Oh, and I have a kidney infection, but that’s a story for another post. Hope your weekend is healthier than ours!

workout on strike

I am skipping the gym today, or at least postponing until the afternoon. For the last month and a half I have sacrificed community, productivity, and time spent mothering my kids to make this a priority in my week, and I am highly discouraged that I have seen absolutely NO results on the scale. I know muscle weighs more than fat, and I’m likely building more muscle, but COME ON.

I’m not quitting for good or giving up in any way. I’m just feeling particularly overwhelmed right with all the things I need to get done, so I’m giving my gym the finger in order to check some things off my list. I need to feel like I’m accomplishing SOMETHING today.

Derailed.

Just checking in because I hate to see posts like this one sit at the top for too long, dragging everyone down. I actually pulled it together this afternoon: I had a good cry over a glass of wine, I had a good cry on the phone with a friend, then I rallied myself to dig out of the clutter that was suffocating my living room.

I recognized early on in my day that I was responding completely wrong to everything – not just in my actions, but in my heart. I’ve felt bitter, angry, and selfish this week – and I’m not even pms-ing. I knew this, yet the train had already left the station and I didn’t know how to turn it around.

When I explained all this to my friend on the phone, she stopped to pray for me right then and there. “Lord Jesus, please pull up the tracks of Jen’s day so her train derails.”

In that moment those words felt like the most powerful thing anyone’s ever said to me.

I find that I am still attempting to change my anger and control tendencies by asserting my own will against them. Just typing out that last sentence is laughable – controlling my control issues with more control. Ha! That’s funny.

So much more to write, but it’s after 11 and it’s good to end on a light note anyway.

Grrrrr…..

I’ve had a really shitty and stressful day already, and it’s only 10:30. Thing after Thing has happened, giving many reasons to complain about the injustice of Things not going my way – some legitimate, some not. I’m am failing miserably, today, at responding to these Things with grace and mercy.

Maybe I should read my own posts about Thankfulness at my NaBloPoMo site.

Election Day

Last year on election day I turned a new leaf and made a new commitment to the democratic process. Having lived a life of apathy until that point, I felt challenged to care by people in my life that I respected. Not pressured by them, mind you, but internally challenged. I saw their example, and felt I needed to take action in my own life to make some changes.

This mostly came about as I unpacked layers of my inner demons that year to discover I was a lazy and apathetic person in general, not just politically. I made decisions based on my comfort, on convenience, on what I was feeling at the moment. Caring about democracy just wasn’t in the top ten list of Things That Make Jen Feel Better.

Funny, since if you took democracy away from me I would be feeling very consternated.

So last week I dug out my voter’s pamphlet for my area and read up on all the issues. I found that as a homeowner I was keen to read up on proposals pertaining to property tax increases; as a car owner I read up on road and bridge proposals; as a mother I read up on school levy proposals. Not having thought about these things at all in the last year, my brain was exercised to think about my priorities and how I wanted my tax dollars spent.

The morning after I voted, I found myself leaning against the stove, sipping coffee and watching the local news coverage regarding election results. That afternoon I checked the website for our major newspaper to see updated election results. I found myself invested in the very issues I knew nothing about prior to election day.

I am no political activist, but my vote made a tiny dent in the way things turned out last week – both at the polls and in my priorities – and that’s all I was hoping for.

Blog-sausted.

Judging by my plummeting stats, you all are feeling the same about this blog as I am – bleh. I hear ya. I’m just not that into it either, so no offense taken.

I’ve been putting a lot of energy into my new lifestyle of waking up, working out, cleaning the house, and going to bed. I was not prepared for how exhausted strenuous exercise would make me, but at least during round two of weight lifting my muscles are not sore. There is yet hope for getting into shape.

I’ve also been putting a lot of energy into other writing projects. I’m exploring the possibilities, but I may have a collection of essays available in the next few months. We’ll see what time and circumstances allow for.

In the meantime, head on over to my NaBloPoMo page where I am reflecting on Thirty Things I Love. It’s been a very therapeutic process, and a welcomed break from my usual worried-email-inspiring posts here. This week I wrote about Fall, Coffee (my personal favorite of the week), Getting Organized, and Sleeping.

Not your average trip to the dentist

You know how you go to the dentist and every. single. time. they give some schpeal about flossing, and you’re like, yeah, whatever. And you know how they give you that little goodie bag filled with a new toothbrush and a roll of floss, not realizing that you have about eight rolls of floss in your bathroom cabinet from the last four years’ worth of dentist appointments?

Yeah, well, I suggest you don’t do what I do.

Today I got hit hard with a You’ve got the beginnings of gingivitis lecture, informing me that if I don’t take better care of my teeth I will soon get gum disease, which is irreversible and expensive to treat.

Yeah, I heard that loud and clear. So if you’ll excuse me, I need to close the laptop and floss my teeth.

Work-out update

I met with a trainer at my gym last week for a fitness evaluation. We assessed my current…situation…and compared it with my goals. He punched a bunch of numbers into a little doohicky and came out with my current BMI and my goal BMI, and predicted that at an average weight loss of 1.5 lbs/week I would hit my goal weight in about six months.

That pretty much blew any plans I had for losing twenty pounds by the end of the month.

I did not join my gym’s training program because it is rediculously expensive. I mean, come on. One half hour with trainer costs more than the monthly fee to use the gym and the childcare center combined. Plus, you have to “join” the training program like a seperate membership, and pay a one time fee of 149 bucks. Even if I had that kind of cash I wouldn’t join based on principle.

If you truly want people to be healthy, then make it possible for them to get help.

Anyhow, the trainer I met with gave me enough information to put together my own plan. I will start each day lifting weights, then wrap up with 20-30 minutes of cardio. He says if you lift weights first, the calories you burn while doing cardio are more likely to come out of your fat. Whatever. I have no idea how anybody knows that.

This morning my legs hurt from lifting leg weights on Monday, and my arms, back, and chest are sore from lifting those weights yesterday. Today I’m supposed to work on strengthening my core, and I’m terrified that by tonight every muscle in my body will be groaning and I will have to use my teeth to cook dinner and do the laundry.

Princess Ruthie and her Knight In Shining Armour

Princess Ruthie and her knight in shining armour

Halloween 2007

When I asked Ruthie what she wanted to be for Halloween she said, and I know this will shock you, a princess. Then Thomas, who always wants whatever Ruthie gets, also said he wanted to be a princess. Obviously Bryan would not have a son wandering around the neighborhood dressed in drag, so we had to get creative. I found this great Knight’s costume in the role play isle at Target, and get this, it was only ten bucks! Not bad for a brand new costume.

And now he has something to wear around the house besides his pink purse and high heels.

…and the winner is…

I’m back from a weekend away and trying to get back into real life again. If you want to check out my first four posts on the Thirty Things I Love, they are Getting Away, Bryan, The Ocean, and Coming Home.

For those of you eagerly anticpating the winner of the Fall Ya’ll giveaway of my Anne Lamott book, the waiting is over! The winner of the random drawing – executed by my lovely assistant, Ruthie – is Jhianna, Queen of the Marginally Bright! Jhianna, I’ll be sending you an email requesting your mailing address.

Thanks to everyone who participated – I had 71 comments! I think that’s a record for This Pile. It was hugely fun, and I look forward to exploring some of your blogs.

But for now I must empty a few suitcases and hit the grocery store.