I am woman...

It's been a crazy month. In the listing spirit of No. 8, here's a bit of what's happened:

1. Matt went out of town for a wedding.
2. I performed a wedding in Piedmont Park.
3. Jackson came down with (in ascending order):
a. a cold
b. a cough
c. a fever
d. bronchitis
e. "walking" pneumonia
f. a ruptured appendix
g. an infection of all of his internal organs
h. bubonic plague
(Okay: in truth, he only came down with the first FIVE symptoms, but really, after that, who's counting?)
4. Celebrated a houseguest! JGG came for two nights, which was superfun.
5. BARACK OBAMA was elected the 44th President of the United States of America.
6. Matt came down with (in ascending order):
a. a cold
b. a cough
c. a fever
d. bronchitis
e. "walking" pneumonia
f. a ruptured appendix
g. an infection of all of his internal organs
h. bubonic plague
(Sound familiar?)
7. I bought a bed at IKEA with the money I made from doing the wedding (fancy, no?), foolishly making the trip ALONE in a Zipcar Minivan and with two tiny people. (Fortunately, Cindy hero-friend extraordinaire, was available to help load the boxes into the Zipcar minivan, which, once returned, caused much consternation among the tiny people who sort of thought that we were going to get to keep it forever.)
8. Disassembled old bed. Chucked it unceremoniously outside in the rain, but paused while Jackson said, "Awww! That's sad. Bye, bed. Thanks for all the sleeping!" (Apparently he's been reading Douglas Adams when I'm not looking.)
9. Assembled new bed with the help of a four year old, an Allen wrench and a significant amount of grunting, while poor, ailing Matt convalesced in the office/guest room and offered as much help as he was able to give in between bouts of fever and hacking
10. Made up new bed with new linens, admired own work. Fell asleep in new bed. Felt like I was in a really ritzty hotel.
11. Took the boys to get haircuts, so as to stave off tangles and snarky comments (see: Photo evidence!) And, in case you're wondering what they look like post-haircut, the top photo was taken the morning after. They look... exactly the same. NB: They are working together on a "kee-ration" (creation) of tinker toys. So long, parallel play!
12. Trekked the boys to church, and back early 'cause Jackson was still exhibiting symptoms of ailments a-e, above
13. Bagged up and donated SIX BAGS of clothes and linens
14. Moved mountains
15. Cured cancer (but not the virus plaguing my family)
16. Congratulated myself a little too much on keeping it mostly together

Needless to say, this has been a crazy month. I haven't even gotten to the part where the boys and I headed up to Knoxville this past weekend for a friend's mother's funeral. We've been busy and unwell, and Jackson finally returned to the doctor last Thursday where he was officially diagnosed with "wheezing" and "walking pneumonia" (which I'm sure isn't a real disease because it has its own .org website; come on, what kind of legitimate disease gets domain rights to itself?!). I'll spare you the details how he was strapped to a breathing machine which made about as much noise as a leafblower, and we were packed into a tiny room with no windows and two SCREAMING children while the medicine wafted into J's open, hacking mouth and eyes, which caused more SCREAMING and coughing and crying and scaring of little Cooper.

Wait. That's pretty much the scene. Scratch the part where I said I'd spare you.

So, hopefully you can see why I've not been blogging as much as I'd like. There have been plenty of good things that have happened in the month of November (see #5, above), including reconnecting with the friend I've had longest in life.

I was at the graveside service for my friend's mother on Saturday morning, in the blustery cold of East Tennessee November. The wind whipped our hair into our faces, and forced us to take notice of its power and presence. This was no quiet fall morning. This was a day to stand up and take notice of what was going on. I stood there, among the gathered few, and sang and prayed and thought about life and death. It's so easy to forget, isn't it? This mortality of ours? We get little reminders - when one falls sick and we pray, jokingly, for death to come and rescue us from our misery. But as the clouds passed and the wind forced our seemingly secure coats and hats into disarray, it was much easier to remember that we are in the midst of a mighty force that has the power to gather and to scatter. The roaring in my ears was not my own power to overcome life as it occurs, but the awareness that I am not alone, working and plodding of my own accord. I may be woman, but God is God, mighty and powerful, strong and passionate. And God is with me... with us, whispering and roaring a powerful presence.