Blog (OLD)

Moments that make you go "Do What"

January 20, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 14 Comments

Let’s first deconstruct the ‘do what’. You have to have a similiar look on your face to Emme in this picture when I told her to hand over those chips. Keep in mind that the phrase is a southern substitute for ‘huh’ or ‘pardon me’. You must say the ‘what’ very high-pitched and in two or three syllables. Our family loves this phrase and even Marcus is excited to use it in context next time he’s at UT. Now back to : moments that make you say “Do whaaaat?”

1. When I brought my new iPhone home yesterday and Steve’s iPhone which has worked perfectly since August instantly said ‘No service’ and stopped working. At all. Do what?

2. And when he called AT &T twice and went to AT&T and then called Apple and was on the phone F.O.R.E.V.E.R. , nobody can tell him why his phone suddenly doesn’t work. Do what?

3. When we were so exhausted and stressed from the iPhone fiasco that we (namely I) couldn’t stay awake for 24. Yeah I know that’s a doozy of a Do What.

4. And then my 2nd brand new NIKON d90 shows the first sign of the same weird malfunction as the first. I think I am destined to take mediocre pictures and videos. And NIKON better have some answers for me today baby. ‘Cause I may have more in my linguistic arsenal than ‘Do What’ for them. I just may have to throw out the “I guess I’ll return it for a Canon” and see where that’s get me. Don’t mess with a girl who wears heavily applied eye shadow. And says “Do what” instead of “pardon”.

5. We are on our fourth router in four years. I’m beginning to think we have some sort of twilight zone magnetic field in this house that screws up all electronics. Problem is, the teens’ technology always seems to work fine. Do what?

6. Stevie may want to take my iPhone with him today since he has actual patients to take care of and real medical calls to take. I’ll gladly give it to him but first I’ll say ‘Do what?’.

7. Lyndsay Johnson, the sweet and prompt and talented girl who has taken on the ginormous task of rescuing me from destroying my blog, says she might get done today. DO WHAAAT?

8. It seems the only piece of technology in our house which works like a charm every time is the old fashioned tape recorder. And my children are always bumfuzzled by it. I wish more things in my life always worked by just pushing PLAY.

So when was your last ‘do what’ moment?

Joy in my Vocation…..

January 19, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 12 Comments

Heavenly Father, Creator of heaven and earth, it is out of Your love and wisdom that You gave me work to do and fitted me in body and mind to do this work. And yet my sinful will too often dreads the workday and casts about for other things to do. But You, O God, have called me to this work. Forgive me my sin. Strengthen me by Your Spirit that I may see that my place of work is a field of Your service to my family, my fellow worker, and my neighbor. Give me joy in my vocation, make me glad and grateful for the strength to serve You, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

~excerpt from the Lutheran prayer book~

~picture of Elea and I when she was a few weeks old…..I love baby feet~

~my blog is getting a makeover…..should be later this week…I’m giddy~

My WWF name: Crusher Gracewell

January 18, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 13 Comments

I’ve been in a knock-down drag out this morning with my very own little blog site. I got a big bright idea that I would try changing the template on my own. Remind me next time I try that, that I’m not technically savvy. Remind me that I don’t even know how to email pictures without a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Remind me that my 8 yo is teaching me to use the iPhone.
And at one point, blogger had me wrestled to the ground. Pinned down and counting to ten backwards. Begging for mercy. I couldn’t find about half my blog. Do what? I could barely breathe. Where for the love of pro wrestlers is my blog? Where are my nonsensical rantings about ADD and makeup and southern girls? How will I live without the post I did on the Waffle House?
I started silent screaming…..and hitting the computer keys full force. And praying and vowing to finish the book of Job TODAY…if you’ll just find my blessed little blog….. WHICH CONTAINS ALL MY THOUGHTS AND DREAMS AND RECIPES AND I DONT ‘KNOW…EVERYTHING WHICH I HAVE WRITTEN DOWN FOR THE PAST 6 MONTHS. Please blogland. Please help me. Can someone help me? ( I know I have a tendency toward the melodrama). I won’t be greedy with colors or three column templates. I’ll just be content with what I have. I don’t mind being a mom blogger.
and just when I had almost given up, the texts of my posts began to load. And that’s when it dawned on me. I should print or save or do something with some of the stuff I cherish. Like the post where I lament that my son is graduating….and the post where I compare Stevie to an oak tree……and the post where I chronicle in painful detail the daily life of this homeschooler. What would you do if you lost all the contents of your blog?
So this is where we stand. I can see the light of day, but I can’t get up. I just want my blog back the way it was. Be patient as I perform a few wrestling moves on blogger today. Thank goodness my brother taught me the pile driver.

Incidentally, my brother used to take me to the armory with him to watch pro wrestlers and I have in fact seen Crusher Blackwell in person. Watching pro wrestling is like the culinary equivalent of eating at Golden Corral. So don’t tell me no lies, have you ever seen a pro wrestler in person? Do you know the specific names of any wrestling moves I can perform today on blogger? Thank you for your confession. God bless you.

P.S. On second perusal, this cream color with the blue writing is singing to me…..I’m trying to figure out what song…maybe Cheap Trick’s ‘I want you to want me’ or perhaps a song I wrote called ‘I’m a serious blogger except for all the references to lipgloss and Texas and hair and King Tut videos’. I could possibly like it…but I need like a banner with owls and birds and vintage fabric and such. And I want sections at the top like ‘about me’ and ‘cooking’ and ‘theology’ and ‘lip gloss’. I think lip gloss needs it’s own category. Who knows next time you click over to this blog, there could be a picture of me with eighties hair and leg warmers as my header. Steve says, “It’s like you’re painting your blog, huh?” Yeah, and we all know how crazy I get when I’m painting.

I should add that the real battle going on in those photos between Emme and Hank is still brewing. I think we’re in for years of that!

The post where my status as mommy blogger is confirmed.

January 17, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 12 Comments

I would not want to be on Andrew’s side of this monkey business. But surprisingly enough, it ended well and no one got the arctic chill. In case you are still questioning whether I should win first prize with that beef stew (which I may just have to do a tutorial on) Andrew can vouch for me. This my friends is why i can barely mention the word ‘graduate’. BTW, that’s one huge piece of plastic he’s holding on to.
I got my camera back. A brand new one. Seems to work like a charm. And this one knows how to use it better than I do. How is this possible? I’m well-read, survived medical school, and will soon be named Beef Stew Queen of the Year…..and yet a 16 yo is changing settings on my camera which I did not know I have.
….and don’t you worry about my Canon powershot either. It seems this whole camera deal is win-win for everyone. Emme keeps asking for her own memory card. She is not fooled the least little bit by the fact that the camera is taking pictures but not saving them. She wants to ‘upload’ them. Can you even spell upload, my dear? More on this technical wizard in a moment.

Well someone’s gotta do it…..and 8 years old is not too young to use the pooper scooper. If I told you she was begging to do it, you wouldn’t believe me….but she was begging none the less.
And this could be a low parenting moment for me…..bathing the dog with the small children. But at least the dog smells better. I’m not sure about everyone else. And there is water EVERYWHERE. Everywhere, I tell you.
But the chaos of the bath is worth this face all snuggled into mommy’s robe.
And to redeem myself from this post, and to prove to all humanity that I am not a detriment to my children, we made salt maps of the isle of Crete. And read Atlantis. At like 7:30 in the morning. My artsy-craftsy girls will in fact hustle in the mornings if there is paint and dough in their future.
Then, we made drawings of the Ark of the Covenant.
And then I finished making my flow chart of this eclectic little book for bookclub which you can read about here. Glad to be done with this one.
And there was supposed to be a picture of Emme lying on her dad’s lap playing with his iPhone….which she knows how to navigate much better than me. However when I told her to go listen to her book on tape (which is played on an old-fashion tape recorder) she said she didn’t know how to ‘work it’. Ummmm….you just push play. Apparently if there’s no complicated touch screen menu, my children are lost. I had to get up and literally walk into her room and push ‘play’. She looked all confused. And then said, “don’t you have that book downloaded onto your iPod? ‘Cause I could listen to it on that?” Ancient technology makes her skeptical and scared. When I take the plunge and get my iPhone at least I’ll have someone to teach me how to use it.

The Good Samaritan……

January 16, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 15 Comments

What were you taught about parables? Earthly stories with heavenly meanings? True enough I guess. But why would Jesus speak in parables? Why didn’t he just give us a clear cut list of what He wanted us to do? Jesus himself answers that question when he say, “….so that you can know the mysteries of the kingdom”.

According to one of my favorite teachers Bill Cwirla,

‘He will hide the kingdom of God in earthly stories…and you won’t ‘get it’ until you get Jesus…..these parables are a crisis of faith and unbelief and you will not ‘get them’ until you get Jesus and who He is and why He came. “

Lutherans cut right to the chase when interpreting the scriptures. Where is Jesus in this parable? Jesus said ‘these are the scriptures that testify about me,’ so they look for Him—-relentlessly. I was always taught to look for myself in the parable. I was taught that they are little proverbs or stories of advice on how I should live. So the parable of the Good Samaritan would be translated something like,

“You should be a Good Samaritan too and help your neighbor. So what kind of a neighbor are you?”

Is this how you were taught to interpret parables? Inserting yourself into them at every turn?

The story of the good samaritan can be paraphrased as follows.

A lawyer (expert in the Torah) asks Jesus what he must DO to inherit eternal life. (Although we’re already in trouble because isn’t an inheritance a gift). Then Jesus asks him what he thinks he must do.

He says, “Love God and love my neighbor”.

Jesus says “Yes, do this and you will live”.

Jesus knows the lawyer can’t DO that but Jesus is a gentleman and will let us live by ‘the law’ if we choose.

The lawyer ‘wanting to justify himself’ says “Well who is my neighbor?”.

And then Jesus tells the parable: A priest and a Levite,on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, pass a nearly dead man who has been robbed and beaten and left to die. They pass him by for various reasons (per Jewish law they would have been rendered unclean for priestly duties) and he’s helped by a Samaritan (not bound by Jewish law) who puts him on his own donkey, bandages his wounds, takes him to an inn and pays his bill. (paraphrased from Luke 10:25)

Imagine my surprise when I hear a wonderful gospel interpretation of the parable that goes like this.

Christ is our good Samaritan. He has found us along the road of life, beaten and robbed and desperate. He rescues us, bandages us, saves us and takes us to the inn (the church) and pays our debt. Pastor Cwirla even takes the terms of the parable in an allegorical way to say: Think of Jesus as our good Samaritan. He literally becomes our neighbor in the incarnation. He takes on our flesh and is bloodied by our sin. The punch line of the parable is that he frees us from the law. The hero of the parable is Jesus. And because the Samaritan is not bound by the law, as are the lawyer and the priest and the Levite, he is free to serve. In other words, Christ became my good Samaritan and died to save and ransom me—-to free me from the law—-so that I am now free to serve others.

You can listen to this teaching here.

Is this a new interpretation for you? Does your heart sing for joy at the thought of Christ being your good Samaritan? I’m wowed. Again. Thank you Pastor Cwirla and thank you to Issues.

Brothers and sisters….

January 15, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 19 Comments

I had lunch today with my brother and sister. It’s kind of a rare occasion really. There was no special reason….no birthday or funeral. Just to visit. And I think it’s so easy to take for granted how wonderful it is to be able to talk and laugh and visit with someone who’s seen you in your skivvies while you had the chicken pox and still picked your nose. And who knows that you’re not nearly as smart or funny or responsible as people think you are. And who shared a room, the flu, a boyfriend, a few knock-down drag-out fights and a car with you. And who has seen you at your worst and best moments. And somehow still loves you more than almost anyone in the world. It’s a immutable bond that we share. An inside track. A ‘knowing’ that is intimate and forgiving and forever.

We may seldom verbalize it but there’s a sense that no matter what happens in our own personal private lives, things with the three of us will never change. My sister will make the calls, my brother will do the dishes, and I will find something funny to laugh about. He will call me ‘sister’. I will call him ‘brother’. Gina will call us both and tell us what time to be at lunch. And where.

I find it ever comforting to know that these two people are ‘mine’. They will take my calls. And listen to my new ‘obsessions’ and endure my rantings and love on my children…..and hold my hand when life goes dark. They will not leave. No matter what. And for that I am thankful. Even the closest of friends can hardly compare to that kind of loyalty. It makes me grateful that my children have each other. And reminds me how important ‘family’ really is in life.

They know our history. Our deepest fears. Our failures. Every vulnerability. And our greatest joys. They make us who we are. And keep us safe. And loved. Here’s to friendships that have depth and staying power. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gifts.

P.S. Brother: Sorry that I ripped your Farrah Fawcett poster in 1977. I did it with volition and malice. In retrospect, I coveted her hair and had to make room for Shawn Cassidy.

Sis, I’m finally able to say I forgive you for stealing my middle school boyfriend. In retrospect, I realize you were sweet and always home when he called. And let’s face it, you were very well developed and I had a mullet.

I love you both dearly. And I’m practicing up for the next installment of Rock Band.