Stumbling Towards Perfect

"You know, Mom, I really am a God Girl." The last sentence I ever heard my 11-year old daughter speak to me. Nine simple words that spoke volumes about her soul. Nine words that I'd go back to over and over and over again: she was a God Girl. She loved God. Word spread quickly through our small community; tragedy tends to. But then something else was being spoken. Amongst the gossip and speculation was a declaration: this faith filled little girl was special. Really special. And then I got that email: "You are Avery's voice. Don't silence her." And I knew. I just knew. I was going to have a concert and Jamie Grace would play at it. Yes, Grammy Nominee, Contemporary Christian Singer, actress in the upcoming movie Grace Unplugged - yes, that Jamie Grace would play at this concert. Avery needed to share the message that was so important to her, that was taught to her through the songs written by and performed by Jamie Grace. I needed the woman w...

Make no mistake, I am a mother full of grieving. Sorrow seeps in between the joints of my bones and I breathe weeping. I am a mother without. I have lost two of my four children: one who was 11 years old and one who never got to be. My mind runs away with numbers: counting the number of people wearing red in order to disappear from the sudden crippling anguish that threatens to suffocate my soul; running calculations: 50% of my children are in heaven, 50% of my children are on earth; playing odds: the even children have died. Avery was #2, the unborn would have been #4, if we have another it will be #5, the odd numbered children are alive, the odds are in our favor. And yet, this grief that has colored my soul isn't a permanent darkness. I am aware of this. I am not stuck. I could be, but I'm not. Not in this moment. I'm aware of what the mind can seduce you into believing, that it can be full of lies so comforting, like a fluffy down blanket that beckons you to close you...

I was thinking I was pretty much the most awesome girl on the planet because I was all hey, honey, guess what? We're going to go see Vince Lombardi tomorrow night! And Big V was all who? And I was all duh, Vince. Lombardi: coach of the famous GREEN BAY PACKERS, yo! And he was all you do realize he died before we were even born, right?  And that's when I explained that we were actually going to go to see a guy pretend to be Coach Lombardi on stage at Young Auditorium in Whitewater  (which, by now all my faithful readers realize is my most favorite place in the world, second to Starbucks) in a one man show called: Vince - The Life and Times of Vince Lombardi , starring John Pinero. The seats were AWESOME and I was getting giddier by the second. Big V loves - and I mean LOVES! all things Green Bay Packers. However, this obsession is nothing to be concerned of since we do live in Wisconsin and the majority of the people here suffer from the same obsession, including, but n...

Sometimes I see an event advertised and I think to myself Self, I'm not exactly sure what this is all about, but for some reason I think it'd be a great idea if we went and checked it out! Which I take as some sort of a Diving Intervention thing. Which can easily be confused with a The Devil Made Me Do It thing, as in heyyy! I've got this bottle of Tequila Rose and I think it'd be a great idea if we played Up and Down the River with it! One leaves you refreshed and invigorated; the other leaves you heaving in a bucket until 3:30 the following afternoon, not caring at all about the crusted mess at the end of you hair. So when I saw The Rose Ensemble  was going to be at Young Auditorium  in Whitewater, Wisconsin, I totally didn't know what they were, what they did, or what it was all about.... but something told me I had to check it out. I think it was this statement that sold me: " The Rose Ensemble reawakens the ancient with vocal music tha...

1. MY OLDEST DAUGHTER ASKED TO BE A MONK FOR HALLOWEEN. SHE WAS 2. At first we assumed she wanted to be a monkey. But, no. She insisted that what she wanted to be was a monk. She had just watched a documentary about the Dalai Lama and was infatuated with Tibetan monks. She was also infatuated with dingoes and whether or not they actually ate the baby. 2. I WAS CALLED IN TO SPEAK WITH MY DAUGHTER'S TEACHER WHO HAD SERIOUS CONCERNS OVER MY DAUGHTER'S FUTURE CAREER CHOICE. My daughter announced she wanted to be a Fortune Teller when she grew up. This was a grave concern and required the immediate attention of myself, her teacher at the parochial school she attended, as well as the prinicpal of the school, because only God can know the future of one's life and we ought not to fall into Satan's trap by buying into witchcraft and false prophecy. When I turned and asked my daughter why she wanted to be a Fortune Teller she explained that she wanted to wear long flowi...

Please ignore my double chin. It normally isn't that pronounced.  On our drive to the theater  to watch a performance of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, Big V asked, "So, is this a rotation of different comics? Or skits? Or just one guy doing stand-up?" And I knew I had to tweet that right away. Because this guy had no clue what we were about to go see. And that made me laugh. Hard. Do you know who Shakespeare is? Yeah, the guy that did Romeo and Juliet. Right. And, do you remember how he talks? You mean all those thee's and thou's and come hither's? Exactly! [silence] Wait. Is this play going to be like that? Thee and thou and come hither? Yep. [silence] I hope I don't fall asleep. I only got 4 hours of sleep last night. Look, if you stay awake for the entire first act I'll buy you a drink at intermission. "Where's Shakespeare for Dummies in this thing?" Once we found our seats I sugg...

Tomorrow, Big V and I are going to the thee-ah-tah . He's awesome at supporting my interests (theater being a pretty big one) and doesn't mind going .... but he may be in over his head this time. When the season dates came out and I was busy circling every event I wanted to attend, Big V was busy making himself a sandwich. He uh-huh'd and mm-hmm'd and oh yeah'd and then I asked what he would like to go to. And he scanned the page and saw the words Comedy of Errors. Except I think he skipped over the 'of errors' part and just saw comedy. You know that's Shakespeare, right? "What's Shakespeare?" Oh, boy, is he in for a treat. Feel free to come with!  We can giggle at Big V together over cocktails during intermission....

This weekend my sister and I gathered up some children and headed over to - you guessed it -  THE YOUNG AUDITORIUM  - to see the children's musical Seussical. (Don't worry, they were our children. It's not like we just grabbed at the supermarket.) Alex, age 7, did not especially feel like going. I thought maybe he was going to say he was far too cool to sit around watching a prancing cat, but his honest explanation included the fact that there was no popcorn at the theater. You just had to sit there. And, uh, watch.  I could totally see his point, because one time, I was craving movie theater popcorn so bad I insisted (perhaps also forced by threat of violence) that we please just stop and grab a large bag to go, sans actual movie watching. Turns out you can totally do that in most movie theaters around here, except for the bitty one behind Toys R Us where they force a ticket purchase before you can even enter the building,...

Sometimes I do something and I think why the heck am I not doing this more often? Because it's awesome. And awesome needs to happen way more often. Case in point: The Ladies Who Lunch. Or in this case:  The Ladies Who Eat Double Their Body Mass And Then Go To The Theater And Then Eat Some More. Which is totally what we did! As you may or may not have realized by now, one of my most favorite places on the planet is the  Young Auditorium  at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater because: 1) I love theatre. 2) It's close by. 3) The eclectic array of performance choices each year never fails to impress me. 3) Their prices are very reasonable. 4) This is the closest I'll ever get to Broadway. Again. (Because I've actually been to Broadway but I don't see the probability of revisiting in the near future.) So my friends and I planned a night to go out to the thee-ah-taahhh. And every cultured woman in America knows that to begin a Girl...

Next time Big V is on my shit list I'm going to have to search out where American Folklore Theatre  is performing because dat der Guys & Does  show was a hoot! Twelve seconds into opening the crowd was hootin' & hollerin'! I can't even begin to describe it, except to say it was the strangest most hysterical theatre experience I'd ever been to. A lot of people in the crowd came dressed in their camo and hunting orange so that should have been a tip off right there that I was about to experience something unique. I mean:  hunting groupies?! Awesome! The basic premise was a man who had offered to take his young adult daughter's new boyfriend hunting with him for the weekend. While the dad was your typical hunter, the boyfriend was anything but. I thought I'd pass out from laughing when he whipped out his knitting. When you're laughing that much you can't help but forget why you were mad in the first place. Half the time I was clutching my ...

I called my Dad up and asked if he wanted to go on a date with me to see the bluegrass group Dailey & Vincent  at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's Young Auditorium ... he instinctively screamed out No! and then mumbled something about not trusting me alone out in public. Which is ironic, because I stopped going out with him alone in public back in 1995 when he picked me up from the airport. Two and a half hours into our 45 minute drive home I realized he was (1) lost on these ridiculous back roads he insisted on taking and (2) driving off his drunk. We got home about 4 hours after he picked me up. Again, the airport is 45 minutes from our house. Who doesn't trust whom, Dad? So, I asked my Mom to go with me. Because she's not that good at coming up with excuses on short notice. And also, growing up she had these long playing records of various folk singers, gospel singers, bluegrass bands -- no Elvis or The Beatles, mind you, but music was...

The last time Big V and I went out alone (meaning without kids) was on the car ride to the hospital to give birth to Cletus the Used to Be Fetus. Cletus is now 16 months old. I think. (Give me a break; he's the third child - half of you can't remember your third child's name much less how old they are.) Suffice it to say, we've earned a date night. Except we're old and tired and boring (that's what happens after three kids and 30) and the only thing we could come up with is attempting to stay awake long enough to watch the 10:00pm news. God sensed we were quickly morphing into Edith and Archie Bunker so he sent  Stebnitz Builders  to save our relationship. Stebnitz Builders  is a local construction company that specializes in building/transforming your home into your every desire and prides themselves in what they call "The Art of Perfect Listening," which is what Big V could totally benefit from because I've lost count of how many times I'...