Trip to Chicago

This week I have been shamefully, delightfully lazy! I slept on every single morning except Tuesday. I actually made it past 8:00 a.m; I felt highly accomplished.:) And of course with Thanksgiving Day we stuffed ourselves as well. This year we went up to some friends of ours, Skeet and her family. They cooked a marvelous dinner and we cooked up some music afterward. I wish I had pictures, but since I don't I'm posting photos of our trip to Chicago on Tuesday. We usually take the 8:58 a.m train and get out about 10:30. After eating at 'The Corner Bakery' we set out to see the town. By the way, The Corner Bakery has some of the best soups and sandwhiches I have ever tasted. Mmmm!

The highlights of the trip were the American Girl store, the Water Tower ( a vertical mall, very neat place) and lots and lots of just-plain window shopping. :)





Mum, Charnelle and I
Charnelle in front of Kit's treehouse

Lorene and I

It was a beautiful day

All of us on the train, coming home. We

always meet up with different regular commuters

so they obligingly snapped this picture for us.

So Christmas is next, and then in January is my trip to Mexico and Guatemala. It will be so fun to be with all my friends again!

Blessings ~ Lyn

November 17

God's Kiss

I saw the falling snow today, 'twas feathery and bright,

And everywhere I looked it spoke, of glory and of light!

Of truth, of love, of faithfulness, of purity and trysts,

That long ago God formed with us, and today kept with a kiss.

The blue sky against the fairy branches

My brothers truck

Michigan splashes of color. :)

Last year I missed nearly all the snow because I was gone to Guatemala. This year I am just reveling in it!

Girls sleepover

It was wild and woolly, sassy and sappy (chick-flik), hyper and happy, and many things beside. We had approximately twenty girls at our house, from six o'clock in the evening 'till close to lunch today. We did everything from straightening hair and manicuring nails to jumping on beds to crying to playing hide n' go seek. It was a trip, and thoroughly worth it. One incident still makes me laugh.

It is 12:30 a.m. Lyn, after her hair-dresser is done with the hair iron, is accosted by an engergetic chica from the basement.

" Lynette!" ( Note: this name was overused last night.)

" Michelle said that we should ask you if we can watch a movie; she doesn't care. We wanna watch ' The Pacifier.' "

Lyn sighs, scratches her pretty, empty head, and decides that Merry is her co-villian for this decision. Merry agrees with Lyn that it is just to late for another movie. Lyn sighs and descends unwillingly into the basement; for not only is she telling them they can't watch a movie, but also that they have to go to bed. As she suspected, her announcement was not greeted with happy agreeable sounds. The noise was inevitable, yes, but it could've taken a more positive form. In fact, the cute, little faces looked anything but charmed by my annoucement....

Below is a fraction of what I was privileged to hear.

"What?!"

" You've GOT to be kidding! This is a slumber PARTY; you don't sleep at slumber parties! It's only 12:30, we can stay up 'till at LEAST 2:00. Why can't we watch the movie, just the movie please? ( No movie, I firmly say) Ok, ok. Just a game, please, please, please; just one more game. We're not tired, we couldn't sleep anyway!"

At this interesting moment Michelle mutters something somewhat articulate about my merits and bolts from the room. Only Melody ( and Merry for a little while) stay to help me face to the mob. Lyn sighs, gathers her tired, tattered courage and makes it very clear that she is not intending to make the least amount of change in her plans.

Kia: " I don't have my Pj's on, I can't change them here. "

Melody: " Go to Sheltons room it's over..."

Kia: "I don't know where Sheltons room is, I can't change."

Melody: " C'mon, I'll show you."

Kia: " ( Protesting) " But I don't wanna know where Sheltons room is.." ( Sounds fade in distance)

Note: #2 Shelton had long since retreated to his cabin, way out of the house. Wise man...

Meanwhile the hubbub continues while everybody fights for where and with whom they wish to sleep. The problem is, they change their mind about twenty times before they actually settle onto one specific spot.

Kia returns, along with half the decibels. Everybody else is relatively settled and happy.

Kia: I'm hot, this bar is bothering me. This little girl is squishing me, look, she does not need this much room. Make her move! I'm gonna hurt her, you make her move. I'm gonna hurt her. ( Kirsten gives approximately 6 & 9/10ths of an inch. Peace restored)

The other Kia begs for a story, I start to read one, but it is almost impossible to hear me over giggles, complaints and another girl begging for a ghost story instead. These girls are ANYTHING but settled.

Lyn, suddenly inspired with an ingenius idea, fly's off for Shelton's guitar. Once returned she begins to play the most soft, beguiling, pretty music she can't think of, ranging far over love songs, hymns, and some Spanish thrown in for good measure. And... IT WORKED. I am still flushed with the success of it. One after another they popped off into la-la land, despite some adamant protests that, " We are NOT gonna sleep all night long!" And one and all snored and snorted peacably while I snuck up-stairs to see if the rest of my guests had places to lay their weary or not-so-weary heads. After all were accounted for I went to bed, happily. This morning I was out of the house before most were up. ( I had to go to work) But I still heard that, " We were just faking sleep last night, we were!"

" Right."

No pictures available at this time; perhaps forthcoming.

Random thoughts

I once read that by twenty one's character is essentially formed. With my 21st birthday coming up it makes me wonder if mine is as it should be. My twentieth year has been such a unsettled, uncomfortable one that I hardly know how to think anymore, what or who I am. I have changed so much; and discovered that you cannot undergo reform with out pain and tears. I was looking through the eye glasses of a child, and when they were taken away, innocence and trust went too. I'm still not sure why; suddenly I see stark, deformed, evil. I see the world as it really is, and quite frankly, sometimes I just want to go back. I see little girls, pushing, longing, praying to be grown-up and I want to tell them to be happy, to realize what they have. But they will, as I did, grow up, make the transformation to a woman, and realize that with greater responsibility and sorrow comes a deeper understanding and abundant joy.
And it is also true, that in the middle of the pain of healing, I begin to understand the reason why. And that, ladies and gentlemen, makes it all worth it!

P.S I did not make myself perfectly clear. It is true, this year I saw the world as I had never done before. But it was not only because of the trasition from teenager to woman, it is because I realized that who I thought I was, was not what God had changed me into. I don't know if this makes sense, but it is as if suddenly, I was a totally new person, with different interests, values, beliefs and ... personality. Understand then, my confusion at who I really am. Is this who I really am at the core? Which is the real Lyn? No, I'm not schizophrenic! :) Though by now I'm sure you're wondering. But even in the middle of the questioning, the haze and confusion, as I said before; I begin to understand the reason why. God knew that the only way to become who He planned for me to be, I would need to undergo surgery; and as I said before, it makes it all worth it.