I can't believe this!

It's snowing--finally!!! Yep, today we received our first sprinkling of snow for the season. It has felt like one long, retarded psuedo-winter without the fluffy white stuff around, although you can hardly call average temps of 65 "winter." Having been born in the middle of a blizzard, I think I just have a natural need for snow--I have to have my yearly dose of snow to even feel human!

The snow is not my primary reason for posting today, though...it is Jasper. We finally had him in for an allergy test right before Christmas and got the results back last week. The vet left a voicemail sort of summing up the report, and here is what she said (I swear I am not making this up!): "Hi, this is Dr. Daniel from Hillside vet, calling in regards to Jasper's allergy test. I would like to discuss this with you but briefly I can tell you what he is definitely allergic to. Um, lamb, beef, rabbit, potato, soy beans, salmon, venison, shellfish mix--although I don't know of any dog food that has shellfish in it. They also say he is borderline to duck and also to a berry mix. They did send a list of foods that would be acceptable for Jasper to eat..." and of course, at this point we are thinking that list must be quite small. We are also rolling on the floor in laughter because neither of us have ever heard of a dog having so many allergies, not to mention, how in the world can anyone be allergic to POTATOES??!??! Come on.

So this has helped somewhat, and we are now trying a new food that we actually purchased from the store (we had been buying specialty food online...lamb, no less), although it has chicken in it which he, technically, is also borderline allergic to, so we'll see how it goes. Nate made a good point yesterday, saying that it must be tons easier to deal with a dog with such severe allergies than it would be a child because with a dog, you just find a food that he can eat and you give that to him the rest of his life. With a child, you'd have to explain why he/she couldn't eat such and such and then spend a lot of time finding new foods and recipes that the child could eat. Plus, you'd have to make a billion people aware of the situation...babysitters, grandparents, neighbors, schools, the child's friends, the child's friend's parents, etc.

Jasper is enough child for us for now. :)

Pardon my poetic moment...

Nate is away on business for an extended weekend, so I bought a book to fill the sudden increase in down time. When Crickets Cry was recommended several months ago by a girl I went to college with, and I'm just now getting around to testing it out...so far, 37 pages in, I am intrigued by the story line and seriously impressed with the author's talent. He reminds me of my friend Rebekah, whose blog (linked at right) will confirm everything I am about to say about her. She is one of those writers who can say a truckload in the space of a sparkplug. Her words are so perfectly chosen and ordered that with just a few lines, you almost feel as if you'd walked through the experience right next to her. I've always been very impressed with her skill, and the author of this book expresses the same skill but in a very poetic manner...not just because the main character is quoting Shakespeare and the Psalms every other page, but just in the descriptive writing.

For example, here is his description of one of the secondary characters of the book: "No makeup. Strong back, long lines. Rigid and stern, but also graceful. Cold but quietly beautiful. Complicated and busy, but also in need. More like an onion than a banana. Her eyes looked like the green that sits just beneath the peel of an avocado, and her lips like the red part of the peach that sits up next to the seed...'Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.'" I must have read that paragraph six or seven times. Great description. And I love the poetic quotes, although it is going to take me forever to read this book because I have to read the quotes several times to (a) understand them and (b) realize their relevance to the story. Oooh, a challenge. Love those.

Anyway, after reading that chapter, I set the book down and just sat there, feeling all poetic and everything, and Jasper came walking up, asking for a belly rub. He actually climbed into my lap--which he takes up more than all of...he hangs off all sides and it's more like I'm pinned beneath him than he is snuggling in my lap--and I tried to think of how I would blog about that moment in a very poetic manner. Obviously, I cannot even produce pre-meditated poetic writing. But it was a nice moment and helped me miss Nate a little bit less.

Check out Bek's blog and experience some great writing. :)

New Year's...new beginnings

Like most everyone else on the planet this time of year, I've been giving a lot of thought to my life in 2006, specifically the things I am not too proud of myself for. With the help of our pastor's sermon yesterday and a conversation I had with a good friend over Christmas, I've decided to make a few changes and I thought perhaps "going public" with them would offer more accountability than my own conscience. :)

1. Prayer. I have really been slacking on capitalizing on the power of prayer. This year I will pray for people to whom I have said, "I'll be praying for you," and I will pray for my friends and family on a regular basis. I put together a prayer notebook this afternoon that is very organized and I think will be very helpful to me in keeping me on track.

2. God's Word. I am hesitant to commit to reading the Bible in one year because I don't think I can go that fast and really grasp what all is there. But I do commit to reading it regularly and developing some sort of method of study. Still working on that...

3. God's people. I have friends (mostly a friend...you know who you are, Amy) who are very good at sending cards and notes and gifts when needed/appropriate. I am definitely not that kind of friend. You may have noticed you have never recieved a Christmas card from me. I have never sent them. Would like to, but just don't. This year, I have marked lots of dates on the calendar that I am going to commit to sending cards and/or gifts for. Please don't be offended if you receive an e-mail from me in the near future asking when your birthday is...it's not that I didn't care before, it's that I'm commiting to show you I care now.

Let's start there. May you all have a safe, wonderful, exciting, stretching, blessed new year!

Don't give up on us yet!

Many apologies to our faithful checkers...I know things on this blog haven't been very exciting lately. :) Hopefully we can do better this year, but I won't promise anything!

We just returned from our cross-country Christmas tour...two and a half weeks on the road with a dog and a loaded backseat! Jasper was really sick of being in the back by the end of the trip. After stopping to let him pee, when we tried to get him to hop back in, he would often just stand there and look at us with sad brown eyes as if to say, "Do I have to? Do you understand how small this space is and how large I am?!!!??" And we would say to him, "Yes, buddy, we're all cramped. Just a few more hours. At least you can lay down to sleep--we're stuck sitting up!" And then he would hop in as if he was satisfied with that answer. We have such a wonderful dog.

Okay, but the trip wasn't all about the dog, it was about family. It was so good to be at home (both of them) and see all the family again. We didn't have long enough at any place (no time would be long enough!), but we will take what we can get! Neither South Dakota nor Wisconsin nor anywhere in between had any snow, so it was sort of hard to actually feel like it was Christmas (funny how mere precipitation can make or break the holidays sometimes), but there were some familiar seasonal things that really helped it set in...Christmas Eve church services, for one thing, billions of Christmas cookies everywhere for another, and of course Dad's Christmas village/ski resort. I'm not even kidding. The thing grows every year and takes over a bit more of the basement than the year before. It is all very impressive, of course, but I have to say that the highlights are the completely functional chair lift (that moves and sounds just like a real one!) and the snow cloud that gently dusts one building with snow flakes. I pointed out to Dad that it seemed kind of phony to have snow dusting only one building while the building two inches to the left got nothing...he just looked at me and said, "Small cloud." I wouldn't be surprised if next year the whole village has a cloud...ah, the power of suggestion. :)

Back to the point, again, this Christmas was more special to me than any other I can remember because this year I didn't become trapped by the presents and food and other Christmasy things that are nice but not really important. This year, I realized over and over how precious family is, and how priceless and immeasurably wonderful time with them is. I seized every moment of this trip that I possibly could and hung onto it for everything it was worth...understanding that each one was such a gift, a gift that I could never know the whole value of nor be thankful enough for. Family, each and every single one of you are so precious to me and to Nate; there is nothing we could say to make you understand how vast and deep our love for you runs. We are far away from all of you and don't see any of you nearly enough, so please know that our love is so much bigger than the few words we can say in a few days of visiting. When we look back on this trip, we see how blessed we were to be with all of you...not because you took us skiing or shopping or watched our dog while we were out...but because we are family and having each other is the biggest blessing we could ever have been given.

Love to you all--