Everyday Thanksgiving

Did Thanksgiving really happen?  Has it come and gone so soon?  What did your Thanksgiving look like?  To evidence that it did, indeed, happen, here are a few pictures from our Thanksgiving, and perhaps you can relate:

1.  The Black Friday ads.  The paper on Thanksgiving Day weighed at least 50 lbs.  Seriously.  Poor paper boy.

2.  Pumpkin Pie.  Would a Thanksgiving feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, pink jello, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, butterhorns, and all other matter of Thanksgiving goodness be complete without this grand finale?  I can say definitively: no.  It would not.  

3.  After combing through the ads, eating a hearty feast, falling into a feast-induced coma (ie afternoon nap), and waking energized again, we dove straight from Thanksgiving into Christmas baking.  It was delicious!

Here's my "thankful list" for the year... (of course there are the "big" things like family, friends, relationships, my Savior, etc [and not necessarily in that order] for which I'm thankful, but there are regular things too that I feel like often get overlooked.)  Fannel sheets, winter coats, quality boots that last more than one season, new life, spacious homes (though ours is not), our non-spacious home, heat, small space heaters, finger nail clippers, hair brushes, pantries, full pantries, fridges/freezers, full fridges/freezers, my Corelle dishes I got for my wedding (I love them more all the time - SO glad I got the pattern I love, even if it cost a bit more), faithful 4-legged friends, a good vet, time, a big garage, a fenced yard, the mailman, a job, a desk, an office with 4 finished walls (that will come to fruition next week!), a small town, big cities, my minivan (do NOT threaten to take it away from me - I will fight for it to the death!), a changing table that is the right height for our tall family, a nice shower head, disposable diapers, cloth diapers, PACIFIERS, extension cords, books, children's books, bookshelves, Christmas decorations, my Christmas tree skirt (it is beautiful - I cannot wait to get it out on Sunday!), cupboard doors to hide everything away, the color red, and cinnamon rolls with frosting.  Those are the things that come immediately to mind anyway.  :)  

And of course, to top them all is this little treasure:

She's mommy's big helper when I cook or bake, getting me everything from our pantry that I don't need.  If I spend much time in the kitchen at all, I end up having to repack my pantry because she is such a good helper.  And I love every second of it!

Of course, it's also true that my little helper would never have been possible without my big helper.  The one who's stood by my side for nearly 13 years now (although I did dump him twice...) as first boyfriend and for the last 7 1/2 years as husband.  There's a line in one of my favorite country songs that goes, "I couldn't ask for more, wouldn't settle for less."  And that's just how I feel.  Thank you, Chase, for your time, effort, and all that you put into our marriage to make it so much better than I could have dreamed.

It's a day late in coming and a little disjointed at best, but this is what I've been thinking about this Thanksgiving, and thanking the One who made it all happen.  And now that Thanksgiving is past (I've been anxiously awaiting this opportunity!), Merry Christmas to you and yours!!!!

Honoring Brook

Today was a hard day in the Francl household.  We said goodbye to a dear member of the family.  I don't really know a better way to honor the life and passage of one of "man's best friends" other than to write a eulogy of sorts.  So here we go.  

Pictured below is Brooklyn Bean Francl.  She came to our home in the fall of 2007 at about the age of 7.  She passed away today, November 17, 2012 at about 9:30am.  We had to put her down because she was loosing control of her bodily functions and her quality of life was quickly deteriorating. 

**Side note: this post is for me - it's for future me who will want to remember these things about Brook, so if you don't want to read about my dog, stop reading now.  It won't hurt my feelings.  I may do a more general post about losing a pet later, but right now, I just need to remember for me.  And grieve.  So let the remembering begin...**

We adopted Brook from a colleague of mine whose father (Brook's previous owner) could no longer care for her because he was battling Alzheimer's disease.  Her previous owner had adopted her from a shelter in 2004 and had named her "Baby Doll."  Chase, not able to bear the thought of standing at the door and shouting "Baby Doll!  Baby Doll!" renamed her Brook.

On the ride from her previous owner's home to ours, Brook and Fraz were sitting on my lap and we went over a bump.  This caused the two of them to bump into each other.  To which Fraz turned, gave Brook a disdainful look up and down, and then scooted an inch further away.  It was a rough start, but it turned out ok.  She spent her first night at our house hiding out in the bedroom, but it didn't take her much longer than that to adjust.

The next three pictures are Brook doing her very favorite thing to do in life: eating.  Once while we were out of the house, this girl ate 2 1/2 of my danishes - that's equivalent to about a pan of cinnamon rolls!  She practically rolled to the door when we got home, she was so round!  Of these, my favorite picture is actually the third.  I think you'll see why when you get there...

Eating from her dog bowl.

 Super excited to get the treats out of her Christmas stocking.

Making sure to get every last crumb of dog food from the bag!  (And she got stuck too - when she backed away, the bag came with her.  It was so funny!)

Like many indoor pets, Brook spent much of her time sleeping.  It was always amazing to me the positions I would find her in:

She did this often -hung her head outside her bed.  I couldn't see how it could be comfy at all!

One of the rare moments of affection between Fraz and Brook. 

When we lived in Vienna, we lived on the 4th floor of our apartment building, which meant we walked 4 flights of stairs 4 times a day with 2 dogs to take them out.  It also meant our dogs had a great view of our courtyard.  I think Brook liked sitting out there so much because she was short, so it made her feel tall to be 4 stories up.  When I'd study on the balcony, I always had a study partner.

We got Frazier, our blond cocker spaniel when we got married, and we got Brook, the black one, about 2 years after that.  Since we waited a while to have kids, the dogs became my kids, and especially when we lived in the DC area I spend a LOT of time with them.  We'd walk to the dog park, meet other dogs and their owners, wander around the neighborhood, and, yes, I even talked to the dogs quite a bit.  I needed to have someone or something to care for, and they filled that need.  I've said many times of the dogs that their purpose has been to keep me sane, and they did (at least for the most part!).

Above you can see that we all had on our coats (the dogs had coats too), as we were preparing to head out into the 2 feet of snow we got in a crazy storm in DC!  The snow was way over the dogs' heads, and they either had to balance carefully on top of it to go to the bathroom, or use the little walkway that was scooped for them to go.  The last of the snow that fell in February melted that July.  It was nuts.

We enjoy our pets and had lots of fun with Brook.  Below, you can see that Brook has some strange looking leg-warmer-like things on her legs.  Chase's mom sent them to us and we had no idea what they were.  The only thing we could figure out was that they were Richard-Simmons-esque leg warmers for the dogs. Turned out they were elastic things to put on the outside of your glass so it wouldn't sweat.  Who knew?

Brook was mostly a mellow dog.  Because of all she'd seen in her life, I think she just didn't get too excited about anything.  She was a tough old bird who didn't fuss about going to the vet, didn't flinch when prodded or poked, and didn't get too worked up about change.  But sometimes, on rare occasions, she would play.  From the day we got him, Frazier has played.  I don't think Brook had ever known what to do with a ball until she saw Fraz playing.  After months of watching him, she finally stole the ball from him one day when we were playing.  And it was established: Brook was the alpha dog.

You wouldn't think it to watch the two of them - Frazier is rambunctious, with lots of energy, and he's bigger than Brook was.  But what Brook wanted, Brook got.  She didn't want much in life - her food, her spot on the couch, her bed, his toy when she felt like it.  And she got those things.  A tiny growl from deep in her throat (the only time I ever heard her growl), and Fraz would immediately surrender. 

Excitedly jumping while playing with Chase. 

I'd forgotten she even played tug of war sometimes!

Brook was a cultured dog, and well traveled.  Because she was first adopted from a shelter, we have no idea where she spend the first few years of her life.  The shelter was in Ohio and from there she lived with a gentleman in Michigan for 3 years.  Then she came to us in Michigan, and we took her home with us to Nebraska on holidays.  She also took the trip with us when we moved out to DC and back to Nebraska, so this girl has seen much of the US from the window of a car.

  

"Helping" me pack my bag... and making sure not to be left behind. 

In her kennel at the airport when we flew them from DC to Nebraska and back for Christmas.

 That's the Shenandoah Valley behind us where we stopped on a trip from DC to Liberty University. 

The picture below is a very memorable picture.  Not only does it show the dogs and me with the Washington Monument behind us, but this picture is the reason I didn't lose my camera.  One night we had a friend staying with us in DC, so we took him to do our favorite thing: tour the monuments at night. (Really, if you're visiting DC, this is a MUST!)  We took the dogs with us for the 2 mile hike, and the night was perfect for it.  Immediately after taking the picture you see below, I stopped at a bench just outside of the WWII memorial to give the dogs a drink of water.  They drank and we continued on our way toward Lincoln.  Unbeknownst to me, my camera stayed on the bench.  It was just before the 4th of July, because they were setting up all kinds of fencing to handle the crowds around the reflecting pools.  We stopped at the bathrooms and the Vietnam Memorial and were just about to Lincoln when a pickup came driving along the reflecting pool (it had something to do with the fencing), and a guy leaned out and said, "Hey lady, is this your camera?"  I didn't even know I'd lost my camera, but because the picture below was the last one taken on my camera, the guy knew that it was mine!  It was a really neat moment of feeling the Lord winking down at me.  The camera I nearly lost is still the one I use today.

  
I don't believe in fate or destiny, but I do believe in God.  And I believe that God has a purpose for everything that happens.  We may not be able to understand it, but that doesn't mean He isn't working.  Over the course of the day, I've thought a lot about our little Brooklyn Bean and her purpose.  I don't know if pets go to Heaven or not, but I do know that Brook served her purpose with us well.  I can't name all of her purposes, but I can name a couple.  

I have the feeling that part of her role in our family was to carry affliction and in some way show how to do it well.  And boy did she ever do that.  Her afflictions included thyroid issues that required pills 2x daily (for all of the years we had her), rotten teeth that had to be pulled, toe cancer (and consequently a toe removal), knee surgery, chronic ear infections (which we called "blueberry ear), cataracts in her eyes, hearing loss, loss of bladder control, arthritis...  You name it, she probably had it... and we probably paid for it at the vet!  But she carried all of these things with a pleasant, cheerful demeanor, and stood up under the treatments like a little champ.  In all seriousness, I think she may be the most expensive pet we ever own, and we got her for free!  

Her main purpose, and perhaps any dog's primary purpose, was companionship, and that she fulfilled very well.  She may not have been able to go on runs with me, but she was the one who would trudge with me into newborn Lily's room for her midnight and early morning feedings.  Brook was the one who would move around the house with me from room to room as I did house work.  She "helped" me give Lily a bath every night by sitting in the bathroom (often trying to lay on Lil's towel) with us.  She might have had the habit of being in the most inconvenient place possible, but that meant that she was always there.  

I took the picture below in the few moments before we left Virginia for good to move back to Nebraska.  The moving truck was loaded to the hilt, the car was packed out, their beds were in the back seat waiting, and all that was left to do was gather up the dogs, drop off the keys, and start driving.  I turned from the moving truck to our apartment and this is what I saw:

The dogs (Brook is on the right, kind of blending into the background) waiting patiently but also intently for us to take them with us.  I love it.  What faithful friends.

Perhaps dogs go to Heaven, and if they do, I very much look forward to seeing an old friend someday.  Or perhaps dogs don't go to Heaven, and Brook fulfilled her purpose while here on earth.  In either case, Brook now rests next to another dear old friend of mine, Ralphie, my faithful cat from all my years growing up.  

Facing death is the crummy side of pet ownership - the side you don't think about when you're picking out that adorable pup or kitten.  But it's part of it, and though it was very hard, I'm glad my old girl is no longer in pain. 

May you rest in peace, dear Brook.

Obedience

I almost didn't get this post written.  it's 12:56am, and I almost didn't do it.  Why?  I knew I was supposed to - been thinking about it for the last 2 hours.  So why didn't I?  Simply put, because I was lazy and because I was afraid.

Lazy is easy enough to address - quit being lazy.  Sloth is one of the 7 deadly sins.  Don't do it.

Afraid - that one took a bit more.  Why was I afraid to write this, you wonder?  Glad you asked.  Because it's going to be an overtly spiritually-themed post.  If you don't like some of the spiritual undertones of my blog, you'll hate this post.  But then, I write here in part to share in your life and in part to process my own life and perhaps this post will do us both good.

This post is about one simple word: obey.  Why don't I do it?  Seriously.  I'm 28 years old - you'd think I'd know by now to obey for Heaven's sake!  I don't know about you, but I actually find it easier to obey in the big things rather than in the little things.  When God asked us to move 1/2 way across the country to a place that was too expensive, where we didn't know a soul, where we had no jobs, and where He would work in us and through us - that was easy.  Deleting some TV shows that I really like off of my DVR - that was hard.

THAT MAKES NO SENSE!!!!  Why do I do that?

Over the last couple of days I knew what I needed to do.  It was that little voice I pretended wasn't there.  I acted like everything was fine, as if I had no idea what was affecting my family.  I brushed little Jiminy Cricket off my shoulder again and again.  Rather than run from what I knew God didn't want me doing, I turned directly to it.  It was silly.  They were TV shows.  They were a waste of time.  They were pointless.  ...But they were soooooooooo enticing.

They weren't "bad" shows per-se.  You may have seen them or you may not have.  If you watch them on a regular basis, I won't think any less of you.  I don't necessarily think they're a bad thing to watch.  But they were bad for me to watch, because God had asked me not to.  I'm not trying to get overly "spiritual" or "religious" or "charismatic" here - there wasn't some bombing voice from Heaven or anything like that.  I'm just telling you what I knew, deep down, to be true.

It took someone else asking if our family was ok for me to confront my disobedience.  And it was affecting each of my family members.  It's a little overwhelming to look around you and realize that some tiny, stupid, seemingly-pointless choice has had a negative affect on the people you love most.  I work hard to be a faithful wife, a good mom, a blessing to my family, a Proverbs 31 woman.  And I totally missed the boat on this one.

I'm not trying to wallow in self-pity here - that in itself would be another sin because it's something that doesn't honor and please the Lord.  But I share this little incident in my life as a reminder to my future self that obedience, even in the tiniest detail is damaging.  Luke 16:10 reminds us that those who are faithful with little will be faithful with much.  I saw what impact my little disobedience had.  I don't want to think of what impact much disobedience would bring.

So I now have a few less shows on my DVR, but my family is back in right relationship with each other and with our Lord.

So why was I afraid to write this blog post again?  The message is pretty straight forward - don't disobey.  I was afraid because I didn't want you to think less of me.

If you're a like-minded Christian, I didn't want you to think less of me because I knowingly disobeyed.

And I was even more afraid of you if you're not a Christian and you're reading this.  What will they think of me?  I'll have a greater impact, God, if you let me just keep having spiritual undertones on my blog rather than being so overt.  You use my life to witness to others overtly, not my blog.  That's what I was thinking.

And then.  And then I climbed into bed and started reading what I should have read over a week ago (but didn't because I was busy watching shows that are no longer recording on my DVR).  I read the first few verses of Philippians (aaaaaand now all of my Bible study girlfriends know how far behind I am...).  Do you know what's happening in the first part of that book?  Paul and Timothy are imprisoned, and Paul is writing this letter from prison.  You know what he says?  He says that his imprisonment has promoted the Gospel because now everyone at the palace, where he's incarcerated, knows he's there because of the Gospel of Christ.  AND (and this is the one that got me) it's promoted the Gospel, because the Christians who aren't in jail who hear about Paul are braver in sharing the Gospel because they know about him.

Do you know how that made me feel?  Paul and Timothy are sitting in jail because they obeyed God.  Their Christian friends were made more bold at sharing their faith because of Paul and Timothy being in jail.  Imagine that thought process:  Well, what's the worst that could happen?  Jail?  Paul and Timmy are doing ok there and find joy despite jail.  Plus, God's telling me I'd better share.  Time to share.

What's my thought process, you're wondering?  I'm sitting here in my king sized bed, in my flannel sheets (I *love* my flannel sheets!), in my warm home, in my conservative state, in my free country, where I can say whatever I want with no fear of jail, I have a platform from which to speak (my blog), and God's asking me to write a blog post.  Really?  I'm afraid to write a dinky little post?  Jiminy Cricket, come back here and make yourself at home on my shoulder!  Time to obey.

Yes, Lord.  I will.  Lesson learned.

Why the Electoral College?

I have been asked recently by a number of friends the reason for the Electoral College in the upcoming Presidential election.  Considering that I have both undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Politics, one would assume I’d be a good person to ask.  And while it’s true that a few years ago I had a ready answer at the tip of my tongue, motherhood, moving, and life put that portion of my brain into hibernation. 

In an effort to wake up my poor, neglected political mind and to answer my friends’ question, I went to the only place one can go in order to properly answer the question:  The Federalist Papers and Madison’s own notes from The Constitutional Convention.  How blessed we are to still have the resources at our fingertips!  (It was pure pleasure to go downstairs to my bookshelves and dust off these trusty volumes.)

We’re smart today.  We’ve learned from the past, and even if we don’t know the answer, we can get the answer to any question via Wikipedia or Google (God bless them!).  But sometimes we forget.  Technology doesn’t change human nature, and since human nature is what the Founders wrestled with while writing our Constitution, it makes sense to go back and review their own arguments in favor (and some against) the Electoral College.

Madison records that on Thursday, July the 26, 1787, Colonel Mason recounted the various suggestions for appointing the Executive (i.e. the President – they hadn’t yet settled on a title for the chief executive).  They were:

1. Election by the “people at large” or what we call a popular election.  Those against it pointed to the fact that the people at large were very unlikely to understand the qualifications necessary for an individual to be President, and even if they did understand the weighty requirements of the Oval Office, the people at large were unlikely to really know if an individual candidate had the qualifications to adequately carry out the job.  To quote Mr. Gerry, “The people are uniformed, and would be misled by a few designing men.”  The biggest argument against popular election, however, remains today, and that is, essentially, majority tyranny over the minority – that a few areas of high population would control who is elected President, and that areas of lower population not be represented at all.  In some ways, the Electoral College serves a similar purpose in Presidential elections as the Senate serves in the legislative branch – it equalizes representation among the states.  If you have a problem with the Electoral College, you ought also to have a problem with the Senate as it is wholly "unequal" representation based on population.
2. Election by state legislatures.  Those against this pointed to the fact that if state legislatures elected the President, then the President would be likely to cater to the state legislatures’ whims.  The office of the President as they envisioned it, was to be a sort of check against state legislatures (and the federal legislature for that matter) running wild, and how could a President be elected by the very group he was to later hold accountable.  To put it briefly, the Founders saw this as a conflict of interests.  (Remember, too, that at this point, Federal Senators were elected by state legislatures, not by popular election.  If the President was elected by state legislatures as well, that could have given them power of election in two branches of the federal government.)
3. Election by the Executives (i.e. Governors) of the states.  This was seen as a dangerous option because the President could easily become subservient to the governors.  State governors, “being standing bodies, they could and would be courted, and intrigued with by the Candidates, by their partisans, and by the ministers of foreign powers.” (Wed. July 25, 1787)  So the President would cater to whatever Governors would garner the most votes.  
4. Election by electors chosen specifically and only for the task of electing the President. (This is what we now know as the Electoral College.  I address problems with this in a bit.)  
5. Each citizen eligible to vote would be required vote for more than one candidate for President, among which at least one vote had to be cast for someone not from the citizen’s home state.  (This was proposed by Mr. Williamson.)  The problems with this were rife, including how would individuals know candidates outside their states (before the invention of radio or TV), and how would the logistics of this be enforced, and what real benefit was it over a general popular election?  These were all questions that kept this option from moving forward.
6. Mr. Dickenson even proposed that every citizen not “popular within his own state” would not be permitted to vote.  In Madison’s notes from July 26^th, he states that even Mr. Dickenson who proposed the idea recognized the inconvenience and logistical difficulties with this and rejected it himself.
7. A lottery to select electors from Congress.  Madison records that this suggestion elicited the response, “We ought to be governed by reason, not by chance.”

In thinking back over the Electoral College discussions I’ve been a part of throughout my education, the discussion is often approached in the wrong vein.  It’s approached by first establishing what’s terrible about the Electoral College and then supposing that a better option exists. 

I don’t think the Founders felt that way when they wrote the Electoral College into the Constitution.  Instead, (and from reading between the lines a bit in Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention) the Founders seemed to think the Electoral College wasn’t a perfect method of electing a President at all.  It caused representation issues (citizens who lived in states with higher populations actually had “less of an individual vote” because of the number of electoral votes per state), logistical issues (the Electoral College met once for one purpose – why not use a body that already existed like the legislature?), consistency issues (states got to choose how to elect their Electoral College representatives, and they got to determine by what criteria the electors would vote), etc. It was actually a really bad method of electing a President.

Although the Electoral College was far from a perfect method of electing a president, it was determined, after days of debate, sending the issue back to committee, and again debating it with the whole Continental Congress, that it was still the best (most agreeable) option for electing the President.  It was the worst option except for all the others that had been suggested.

I like to consider myself intelligent.  I have a BA from Hillsdale and an MA from Georgetown, and I’ve studied and gotten very good grades under some very strict/difficult instructors.  But I do not fancy myself in any way more intelligent or to have a better understanding of human nature and government that the men who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor in order to separate from England.  And it was many of the same men (who did the aforementioned in the Declaration of Independence) who then gathered to birth our nation through the writing and eventual adoption of the Constitution. 

I’m not smarter than them.  I don’t have better arguments than they do.  I haven’t observed human nature and understood it in the tense contexts that they had seen.  If I were to stand against the Electoral College it would be to stand against Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and the whole Continental Congress.  It’s not that there aren’t other ways the President could be elected – it’s just that they deemed the Electoral College the most favorable option.  And they left behind their reasons for that belief. 

For myself, I am in favor of the Electoral College.  And I hope after reading this you have a more informed opinion, whatever yours may be.

Photo Memories

I'm so thankful for pictures.  I have lots of memories of growing up, but the ones that are sharpest, the ones that are clearest, the ones that I remember best are memorialized forever in photographs.  Next to our bed, I have one of my very favorite pictures - it's the first family picture we ever took after Lily was born.  And it's priceless.  Even the thought of losing it makes me teary!  

My recent posts haven't had many pictures, so I'm making up for that with this little photo journal of our recent vacation.  It all began with Lily's first flight...

(Yes, I was really exhausted when we left.  I didn't realize how much you could see that on my face until I saw this picture!)  We flew to Orlando where we stayed a night in a hotel and then took a shuttle to our cruise ship.  When I read online that the room would be 120 square feet, I wasn't really understanding how small that was...

There was just enough room for Lily to practice her walking and throw the ball with her daddy.

We did sleep in two separate beds just like Dick Van Dyke and his wife did back in the day.  We put the two beds together initially, but there wasn't room for the Pack n Play, so we ended up separating them.  It worked out ok, because we only spent 1 night on the ship anyway.  Due to Hurricane Sandy, we disembarked the ship the next day in order to spend a couple of days in Orlando.  We had to wait quite a while for our shuttle to pick us up...

My Mom took us on the trip along with my brother and his wife and my sister.  Below is a picture of our ship, the Monarch of the Seas.  We joked that it was more like the Monarch of the Port.

We had a whole day in Orlando with nothing planned so we went to Universal Studio's Island of Adventure where the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was opened a couple of years ago.  And it was AWESOME!

Above is my sister-in-law and below is my sister.  We had Pasties and Butter Beer in the Three Broomsticks, we rode the rides, we drank Pumpkin Juice and got Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.  We even bought two wands!

It was SO cool and SO much fun!  I totally recommend it!  :)

The Island of Adventure also had lots of other attractions.  If you ever visit there, you MUST go on the Spider Man ride - it's VERY cool.  The Dr. Seuss area was also really fun, and a great area for smaller kids.  Lily was maybe a little too small for it.  She did ride one ride there, but she was NOT fond of the Cat in the Hat, as you can see in the picture below...

There's an area in Seussland themed after Gerald McGrew, the boy who imagined how he would run the zoo if he could.  Lily really enjoyed that area, especially since she's put that crawling business behind her and has joined the world of the walkers!

At the entrance of Universal Studios, there was a tiger that Lily growled at every time we walked by.  So on the way out, we stopped to pet it.  :)

By the end of the trip, Lilers was totally conked out.  She slept for 2 hours on one of our flights back to Nebraska.  Thank Heavens, because this mommy needed the 2 hours of sleep on the plane too!

She woke up for about the last 30 minutes of the flight and because it wasn't a full flight, she got to sit in her own seat.  (What a big girl!)

And those, my friends, are a number of the moments from our trip that were captured forever in photographs.  And I'm SO grateful to have them!