My son and his family visited over the weekend so that we could celebrate his birthday, and he told me that he had entered us (him and me) in a contest to win a WordPress blog. Guess what? He won! So I am moving and (hopefully) learning to do a lot more with my blog. My new address will be I Thought I Would Have It Together By Now. I hope you will visit me there. Thanks for coming by.

My daughter is an adult now, but she played volleyball in junior high and twelve years ago this summer, she tried out for the high school volleyball team. She had done well in junior high, but she didn't get a lot of play time until one of the regulars messed up. The coach used Jill to "punish" the other player, making the girl sit on the sidelines and watch as Jill set the ball time after time.

Neither my husband nor I played sports, so we watched her with a mixture of feelings. She liked what she was doing. She was active. She felt like it gave her a place. We supported her decision.

Then came that high school tryout. The same woman coached both the junior high and high school teams, so Jill was familiar with her. She was also young enough to think that life was fair. She worked her rear end off at the tryouts, which lasted two weeks, one of volleyball camp and another of the actual tryouts. The coach said everyone had to earn their spots. She was sure she had a chance. Spots were filling slowly, but she had survived several cuts, so we were really hopeful as I dropped her off for the last day of workouts.

When I came to pick her up, she had a smile pasted on her face and she asked if we could give a certain group of girls, not any of her friends, really, but preppie girls, a ride home. Hers was a country school, and begging for a ride that went to the right side of town could have taken them a while, so I told her we could. I wondered why that group of girls, though, and as I saw them coming toward the car, I asked how she had done. Her voice broke, just once, as she told me she had been cut. The coach who said everyone had to earn their spot saved three spots for girls who had been on vacation the whole two weeks the tryouts were going on. And the girls we were giving a ride to? They had made the team.

I was so proud of my daughter as she steered those girls who would have thought nothing of snubbing her in school into our car. She congratulated them all and spoke brightly of the fun things they had been doing during the camp, of how well she thought the team would do.

When we let the last girl out and headed for home, she didn't say anything. She leaned her head on my shoulder, and then the tears started coming. It wasn't fair, she said. She had worked hard for one of the three spots that were never really available in the first place.

I agreed with her. I have never been a coach, and I don't really care for organized sports, but I think it would have been fairer if the coach had made it clear up front that three of the positions were already full instead of letting the other girls who had worked get their hopes up. I think that would have been easier to take.

My daughter and I were talking about this today as I drove her to the airport. The reason it came up is because the daughter of a friend of hers is starting her freshman year at high school today, and my daughter was talking about the girl's maturity level. This girl was home-schooled (on paper, anyway) last year because she couldn't take people picking on her. While junior and senior high school can be horrible, my daughter thought the picking would happen no matter what. She looked at it as part of growing up.

Growing up IS hard, and I remember how proud of my daughter I was that last day of volleyball tryouts. She was generous enough to offer a ride to girls who really were not her friends. She did not try to take away from their accomplishment in making the team. She did, in fact, encourage them, which is something I don't think I could have done as a teen. I might have a hard time with it now.

I didn't remember if I had ever told Jill how proud I was of her, so I told her today. Better late than never, I guess. She still has a generous heart. She still tries to encourage. She still takes it on the chin and then gets up when things don't go her way.

And I am still proud of her. And glad I got the chance to say it.

This is a bunch of hooey as far as I am concerned. If the fetus moves away when being prodded, as far as I'm concerned, it feels pain. This is just another justification for devaluing life.

For much of our married life, my railroad husband traveled. A lot. I knew that he traveled when I married him, that traveling was part of working on the railroad, but as the daughter of a teacher, I did not exactly realize what that would mean. What it started out as was a two-week honeymoon after which he went to Goshen, Indiana, three hours away from home. He worked ten or more hours a day four days a week,which was really too long for him to come home every night. He would leave on Sunday night and come home on Thursday. The railroad provided him with less-than-luxurious accommodations. Later on, those accommodations were motels, but in the early days they were camp cars.

Ah, the camp cars. These were railroad cars, approximately the same size as a semi box, fitted with metal bunks and showers, one shower and bathroom per car. In the beginning there were ten or twelve men per car. That went on until the union pushed the issue of floor space per man. The upper bunks were eliminated; that meant five or six men per car. Still not a lot of room.

One of my favorite (NOT) stories about the camp cars has to do with chlorine poisoning. The bacteria in the one toilet per car had to be controlled in some way, so chlorine tablets were dropped into the holding tank. One time somebody did it wrong, and chlorine gas filled the car. Several people were hospitalized.

You have to remember that we were married in the pre-cell phone days, so I didn't find out about this right away. As a matter of fact, my husband and I survived on one phone call a week, which we planned for Tuesday night. There was no such thing as cheap long distance then. My husband had to find a pay phone. Local calls had just gone up from ten cents to a quarter. Long distance cost quite a bit more.

Another story involves my husband's working with an employee who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic. As I have said, camp car quarters were close. One night this man had been drinking and stormed into the camp car, grabbed my husband's foot and dragged him off his cot. The reason? He didn't think my husband had paid him correctly. That man is in prison now. He tied his wife to the bed and doused her with kerosene after an argument one night. Not being able to find a match or a lighter, he headed out for the store. Unfortunately for him, his wife got loose during that time and called the police, who were waiting for him when he returned with a lighter and some matches in case the lighter didn't work.

People I have talked to tend to think that having a husband who travels is hard on the wife and kids, and it is, but it is hard on the husband, too. I think about the time our five-year-old daughter was hospitalized in serious condition and I wanted to reach my husband before I gave permission for a medical procedure. I called the office, and the secretary/clerk informed me that you couldn't interrupt the work day for "just anything." The decision had to be made; I gave permission. My husband called the hospital hours later. He would rather have been there.

Or there was the time six years ago when our home was broken into. That might not have happened had it not been known that my husband traveled. My daughter and I survived the whole ugly business and called my husband, who was three hours away in Elyria, as we waited for the police. Our son hurried home from college in the next town to stay with us. I told my husband not to come home. He might as well have, he said. He didn't sleep at all.

The railroad employs men predominantly, and those who have lived under the conditions I just described have a common bond. They survived. They lived in conditions that were uncivilized even under the standards of the day. They ate camp car food like green bologna, which was probably full of bacteria since it was not handled according to today's standards. Most of them, at least in the track department, started out doing physical labor, so they are strong men. Have you ever swung a sledge hammer all day? They probably weigh ten pounds. Such a job is not for the weak.

Mostly, though, these men survive the loneliness. I know many of them are proud to work on the railroad. There is a romance there. It never ceases to amaze me that people come up to my husband when they see him in his truck to ask what he does. Does he ride the trains? How does his truck get on the track? And all that big equipment! The men who are asking these questions, though, have no idea what it is like to live without your family four or five days a week for most or all of the year. They don't know how boring restaurant food can get or how tired you can get of channel surfing when there is just no one to talk to.

The railroad has changed some since those early days. It was bought out twice. Consolidated. Abandoned in some areas. The management moved from local to regional. The territories expanded. Men who used to only have to go two hundred or so miles to the job might now have to travel eight hundred if they want to work. And most of them do. They love the job, even if they don't like the travel. They are honorable men. They pay the bills. They do the job.

My husband is always glad to see the men he knew in the old days, and for a while one of them, Eddie, has been in town. Eddie worked on my husband's gang way back when. He has been around a long time. He knows his job. I think he finds a certain comfort in working with someone that he knows. My husband does. Each of them knows the other's expectations. Each of them knows the way things SHOULD be done. They know about each other's kids. And grandkids. And the knowing gives continuity, stability, to a job that can change from minute to minute.

I saw Eddie today, and we talked for a bit. We talked about kids,about grandkids. About jobs. He mentioned a backhoe operator he and my husband both knew. I asked if the man was still ornery. A little smile crept onto Eddie's face. Yeah, he said. Still the same. The funny thing about this is that at dinner, I told my husband about the conversation and the same exact smile appeared on his face. Some things never change, he guessed.

People think that because working on the railroad is such a physical thing that all there is to the men who work there is brute, but there's a lot more. Just like men anywhere, they need their families. They may not ever talk about it, but they need their friends. They need people around who know both what the railroad is and what it can be.

That's why I also am glad when Eddie is in town. He and my husband share a lot of memories. I'm thankful that though the railroad has changed a lot, they can get pleasure out of sharing their "railroad ties."

This is what we sang in church this morning. It is from the hymn “Christ Be My Leader”:

Christ be my leader in age as in youth
Drifting or doubting, for He is the Truth.
Grant me to trust Him; though shifting as sand,
Doubt cannot daunt me; in Jesus I stand.

I like this whole hymn, but I thought this verse really illustrated the differences between being young and being, well…older. I am watching my son and his wife as they look for a condo or a house, my daughter as she seeks to find a life post-divorce. I remember drifting and doubting. Could we afford the house? Was it the right one? What if the lay-off (and there were many) lasted too long? How would we make the payments? I knew that God wanted the best for me, but what if there wasn’t anyone out there who wanted to marry me? How would He fulfill that longing that I had from a very early age?

Truth be told, I still drift and doubt. Quite a bit, more than I should. But I am much better at coming back to the anchor, Jesus. At least I think I am. This looking to Jesus earlier can be best illustrated by two conversations I had with my friend Martha on Friday.

Martha is a blessing to me. Her spiritual light shines in a way that you don’t see very often, and she can quote a Bible verse, without knowing what the problem is in your heart of hearts, that will pierce through to your soul. I am humbled by her faith, and I hope I get there some day.

Martha doesn’t call very often, but she did on Friday. I was glad to hear from her, but I could tell that something big was on her mind. Turns out it was her Army son. He was to ship out to Iraq on Thursday, and she wanted to go to Kentucky to see him, but her car was not in working order. He was set to ship out for a year and a half, and this would be his second tour of duty in Iraq. I knew that weighed heavily on her spirit, although she never came out and said it. My son just completed his service in the Marines. She knew I would understand.

Interestingly, the turn the conversation took was the cancer Martha dealt with this year. She is now cancer-free, but she told me how she wasn’t worried and enumerated the times she could already have died but hadn’t. Obviously, it wasn’t her time. I was interested. She was actually ejected from a car when she was two, in those pre-car seat days, and the car rolled over on her. Obviously, she was fine. Why? Angels were at work, and her little two-year-old body ended up in a depression, a hole just big enough to protect her from the weight of the car. She said that she figured her time had not come yet, but when it did she was ready to go. She wondered if that was fatalistic. Both of us knew we were talking about more than her. We were talking about her son.

This is what we sang in church this morning. It is from the hymn “Christ Be My Leader”:

Christ be my leader in age as in youth
Drifting or doubting, for He is the Truth.
Grant me to trust Him; though shifting as sand,
Doubt cannot daunt me; in Jesus I stand.

I like this whole hymn, but I thought this verse really illustrated the differences between being young and being, well…older. I am watching my son and his wife as they look for a condo or a house, my daughter as she seeks to find a life post-divorce. I remember drifting and doubting. Could we afford the house? Was it the right one? What if the lay-off (and there were many) lasted too long? How would we make the payments? I knew that God wanted the best for me, but what if there wasn’t anyone out there who wanted to marry me? How would He fulfill that longing that I had from a very early age?

Truth be told, I still drift and doubt. Quite a bit, more than I should. But I am much better at coming back to the anchor, Jesus. At least I think I am. This looking to Jesus earlier can be best illustrated by two conversations I had with my friend Martha on Friday.

Martha is a blessing to me. Her spiritual light shines in a way that you don’t see very often, and she can quote a Bible verse, without knowing what the problem is in your heart of hearts, that will pierce through to your soul. I am humbled by her faith, and I hope I get there some day.

Martha doesn’t call very often, but she did on Friday. I was glad to hear from her, but I could tell that something big was on her mind. Turns out it was her Army son. He was to ship out to Iraq on Thursday, and she wanted to go to Kentucky to see him, but her car was not in working order. He was set to ship out for a year and a half, and this would be his second tour of duty in Iraq. I knew that weighed heavy on her soul, although she never came out and said it. My son just completed his service in the Marines. She knew I would understand.

Interestingly, the turn the conversation took was the cancer Martha dealt with this year. She is now cancer-free, but she told me how she wasn’t worried and enumerated the times she could already have died but hadn’t. Obviously, it wasn’t her time. I was interested. She was actually ejected from a car when she was two, in those pre-car seat days, and the car rolled over on her. Obviously, she was fine. Why? Angels were at work, and her little two-year-old body ended up in a depression, a hole just big enough to protect her from the weight of the car. She said that she figured her time had not come yet, but when it did she was ready to go. She wondered if that was fatalistic. Both of us knew we were talking about more than her. We were talking about her son.

I assured Martha, as our conversation ended, that I would pray for her son and for travel mercies for her as she went to see him. Getting the car fixed was the first order of business, and it weighed on her heavily.

Not half an hour later, as my husband and I were leaving, the phone rang. He looked at me, and I could see that he was questioning whether we should answer it or not, but it was his on-call weekend, so I did. It was Martha, and she was crying. I understood through her tears that her Army son had called. What, I wondered, could he have said? I gave up and asked. Much to my delight, her answer was that she cries when she is happy! Her son had called to tell her that he would not have to leave until next year. The Army is going to send him to school, and they decided not to ship him to Iraq and then bring him back for the school. She was so happy that she wanted to share.

How wonderful are the works of God! I do not know what He saved Martha’s son from, but I do believe He intervened. And just like God cares about the lilies of the field, He cared about a mother’s heavy heart.

Martha’s son told her not to worry about coming to see him, not to worry about the car. He was going to try to come home and see her. She assured me we would get together so that I could meet him. And I will make a special effort. I want to meet the young man that God can use better here, in this country. At least for now. As a mother, I can only imagine the joy at that reunion.

I don’t think Martha fears death. Don’t get me wrong. I think her attitude is the one we all should have, the one the hymn we sang in church this morning so clearly illustrates:

Christ be my Savior in calm as in strife;
Death cannot hold me, for He is the Life.
Nor darkness nor doubting nor sin and its stain
Can touch my salvation: with Jesus I reign.

Amen.

I read this advice for aging gracefully on another blog, Linda’s Thoughts.  It was given by Chuck Swindoll, and I think it is apt.

1. Be bold.
2. Be joyful.
3. Be godly.

OK, so this would be why I sometimes hate the railroad.

My husband called me as I was on my way out the door this morning to tell me he had been offered a job in Chicago, something which he did not want. His boss asked him what he would do if he were assigned, and he said he'd take the job. So we both spent the morning wondering if the issue was going to be forced.

There is nothing wrong with Chicago per se, you understand. Real estate costs more there. Maybe everything costs more there. Gangs there have taken railroad equipment hostage and demanded ransoms, which they received. It would be a big adjustment. Not to mention the fact that we are west of all the family we are close to now. We had hoped that if we moved, it would be east.

Anyway, the danger has passed. When my husband didn't jump at the job, they offered it to a guy who is working as an assistant up there, someone they will not have to pay to move. I think that makes good business sense.

I wonder, though, if we will have a chance to move east, which is what I really would like to do. The town in which we live is really economically depressed. Houses here take a year or more to sell. I would like for the company to move us before retirement, when we would have to deal with all of the hassle ourselves.

This is the second or third job my husband has been offered since we moved here, depending on the way you look at it. One was north of us and just outside Chicago, actually, a yard job. He was assigned there during the illness and subsequent death of the supervisor. He doesn't want a yard job, really, because people who work in yards tend to die of stress-related things. Then there was this job. And there was the job in Michigan, which I really wouldn't have minded, except that it would have capped his pay at less than he is making now and kept him inside, which I don't think he could have taken on a long-term basis.

I am thankful, though, that my husband's superiors notice his potential. I wonder if he realizes that, that they have confidence that he will do a job and do it well no matter what. I guess I am back to wanting the fruit that confidence will bear to go on our side of the tree, so to speak.

I don't know what the future holds for us, but for once, I am not a case of nerves about it. I am certain that God has it all laid out, and I am equally certain that He may not be done with us yet.

We shall see.

I have two sisters. One is seven and a half years older than I am, and the other is seven and a half years younger. I don't know why, but the older sister and I didn't ever really get along. The younger sister and I have been friends all of our lives. She is forty-two.

Yesterday, my younger sister was razzing me because I won't leave my husband alone to travel. "You're afraid something is going to happen to him while you are gone," she said.

It's not that really, or maybe it is, but only a little bit. It is more that he traveled for the first twenty-one years of our marriage and he doesn't like being alone. He even said that, which is a lot for him to admit. He is an adult, and I know he could survive without me. I know I could leave him for a while. But I don't want to. That was hard for me to say. My sister's pull is strong.

Later in the evening, my teaching partner from Ohio called. She and I have maintained our friendship even through our move to Indiana. It has been six years since the move, ten since Lisa and I started working together. I had called her because her sister runs a consignment shop for children's clothing near where my grandchildren live. I had thought that I might patronize it on my next visit.

Lisa called to tell me that her sister was....dead. She was forty-one. She stopped at a light and died before she took off again. That was in July, and there is still no cause of death. Her death leaves Lisa, who is forty-three, an only child. Her mom has Alzheimer's and no longer recognizes her. Her father died two years ago.

God worked things out so that Lisa was already on her way to her sister's that day. She arrived to find several police cars in front of the house and accompanied her brother-in-law and her sister's children, aged five, seven and nine, to the hospital. Nobody was rushing around when she got there, she said. So she knew.

The two oldest children, who are girls, took their mother's death in vastly different ways. The oldest was teary. The middle child didn't shed a one. And the five year old, who is a boy, stood at the window and told everyone who passed by that his mom had died that day. I can't even imagine what that was like for my friend. Instead of having a fun weekend with her sister and her family, she planned her sister's funeral.

Lisa is worried about her brother-in-law and the kids. There are some financial problems, and of course they are all dealing with the grief. She sort of wishes they would move north so that she could be of more help. But in the middle of it all, she has her own grief to deal with.

This is what she said to me: "Becky, she was my sister. We were only sixteen months apart. We told each other things we couldn't tell anyone else. Who else can be that to me?"

What could I say to that? I have no way to ease the loss she has suffered, but I could hear the anguish in her voice.

Like I said, I am only really close to one of my sisters, and I don't really know why that is. But I know it would devastate me if I lost her. Razzing and all. I know she is going to heaven when she dies. But what would I do without my friend?

I was mowing last night, and my neighbor was out pulling up her crabgrass. We don't see each other very often, so I stopped to say hi.

As always, Betty asked about my children. I mentioned my daughter, who survived a divorce earlier this year, and her face grew sad. "You know," she said. "you have to admire her strength. My husband had affairs for years, but I had no skills and I was never strong enough to leave."

I was dumbstruck. Betty and her husband seem so happy! Certainly she can't mean this husband. She must have been married before. Widowed maybe? I don't know how old she is exactly, but she has adult grandchildren.

I do admire my daughter's strength. I got married right out of college and although I worked and considered myself independent, I went straight from my father's protection to that of my husband. I have never lived on my own, signed a lease, bought a car. I mean, I have done those things, but not when the final responsibility was mine and mine alone.

I am sure Betty has strengths that she doesn't credit herself with, but she's right. It is brave to face those things alone. And I admire my daughter for having made it.

Part of my job as a special education paraprofessional is to be in the classroom with special education students who had to be mainstreamed because of the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT. That is how I ended up spending fifth period in English 12.

The teacher chose to read Isak Dinesin's story "The Ring" out loud. Being a former English teacher, I thought her decision was wise. The story is steeped in imagery and not the kind of thing many kids today would read or understand on their own. I think understanding always comes more easily when someone reads to you.

The story really concerns the loss of innocence suffered by the main character, Lise. The kids were having problems with that, so the teacher explained. She can't be more than thirty, and this is what she said

"It's all about knowing yourself. To know yourself, you have to be willing to be alone. I've heard all the moaning about needing a boyfriend and a girlfriend, but you don't. I've heard that you are afraid, that you can't leave mommy and daddy, but you can. You will never really know yourself until you are willing to be alone."

I think those are wise words, although I doubt that seniors can actually understand them.

- Forbes.com

Proverbs 15:16 (New International Version)

16 Better a little with the fear of the LORD
than great wealth with turmoil.

Proverbs 30:8,9

8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.

9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

A while ago I posted on a wedding to which my husband and I were invited, that of his long-dead brother's eldest son from whom we had not heard in fifteen years. Jay is only twenty-three, so the lack of contact was in no way attributable to him. His father died suddenly and accidentally, and his mother, who was young, got on with her life.

Neither my husband nor I knew what to expect. For instance, we did not know if my husband's remaining three brothers had been invited to the wedding, and we were afraid to ask for fear that they had not. We had no idea what Jay looked like. We didn't really know if his mother wanted us there, or what kind of reception we would receive. And we decided not to worry about such things. After all, this was about my husband's brother's son joining his life to that of another and asking for participation from his father's family.

The wedding and reception were held at a little country rental hall. When we drove up, we did not see any cars that we knew, but we were a little early. Chairs were set up for an outside wedding next to a gazebo, and thunder rumbled off in the distance.

We decided to venture inside. We recognized Jay's mom right away; she had not changed a lot in fifteen years. She made no move to approach so my husband (thank God for the supervisorly habits he now has) stepped up to greet her. The ice was broken. She introduced us to the groom, who stood at her side. Before the wedding was obviously not the time to get acquainted, so we went outside to sit down.

There were not many people on Jay's side of the aisle. Jay's mom and her second husband sat in front, holding a baby girl who we later found out was the couple's daughter. We were there, and there were three other couples. Total of ten. I wondered if that kind of thing would bother him. I know a similar situation bothered my daughter-in-law very much.

Jay has a younger brother and my husband and I searched for him, hoping that he would be in the wedding party. My husband did not see traces of his brother in the groom; maybe he would see them in the other son. Then the wedding began.

As the wedding party proceeded down the aisle, we picked out Jay's half-sister, his mother's daughter by her second husband. She is a pretty girl and looks a lot like her mom. We still could not pick out the groom's brother. Like other weddings, this one held the promise of the future. The father of the bride beamed as he led his daughter down the isle. And Jay and his bride, although they may have been nervous, could not seem to stop smiling.

The ceremony was quick, and we proceeded to the receiving line. Jay received our congratulations, but made no other comment. I don't really know what my husband expected. I thought maybe something like saying he was glad my husband was there.

Our sister-in-law (ex-sister-in-law?) came up once we were seated and chatted for a minute or two. She remembered that we lived out of state. We didn't know how to ask her where her younger son was, and we thought maybe our questions would be answered anyway when the wedding party was introduced.

That introduction happened in short order. Jay's younger brother was not in the wedding party.

We tried to decide what to do. My husband and I are not really bold people socially, although he has been a lot more forward since he has been in management. It is awkward to sit at a wedding where you don't know anyone, where you don't know anything, really, about the newly married couple.

We sort of decided that we would leave after the cake was cut, and it was to be cut before the dinner. My husband had done what he came for, really. He was at Jay's wedding since his brother could not be. He stood for a part of the family that we were guessing Jay really knows very little about.

My husband had hoped, though, to get life stories from Jay and his brother, and he finally could not stand it any more. He approached the cake-cutting as pictures were being taken. Jay's stepdad waved him over. My husband got at least a portion of the stories he hungered for.

Jay is an electrician. He had lived in Toledo where his father lived for three years. His younger brother was serving in the Navy. It was not much, but certainly more than he had known before. My husband got a chance to tell Jay and his mother that our youngest grandson is named Tony in honor of Jay's dad. We had met his mom's second husband before, and my husband was glad to know that he was still around, that Jay and his brother had a father-figure when they were growing up.

Then we left. It looked like it was going to be a long night, and my husband saw no sense in waiting around until Jay opened his gift. My husband had chosen to give him a framed family portrait of his family when all the boys were younger. Jay's dad as the oldest of five, stands in the middle, surrounded by his brothers and behind his parents. Maybe that was the whole reason we were invited in the first place, to connect Jay to the father who died when he was three.

I hope our presence did that. I hope Jay is curious enough about to ask questions of my husband or his other uncles. Although it is easy to see that Tony lives on in his sons and his granddaughter, Jay's asking questions would keep his dad alive, at least in a way, in his heart.

Victoria Times Colonist - canada.com network

My son sent this to me, and I can't really improve on his comment, which was, "This is a sweet story. Too bad all the sweet stories nowadays come from Canada."

Hope it blesses you like it blessed me.

...beggars would ride. Isn't that how the saying goes?

OK, so I know we don't always get our wishes, but here is mine.

My daughter has a male friend she has been spending time with since her divorce. He is good for her, and it appears that she is good for him too, since the time they spend together seems to be increasing. I wish things were moving faster since it appears from the outside that they love each other, but these things move at their own pace.

On Monday, this young man has a job interview in Columbus. He wants to get out of Toledo. My husband and I have wanted our daughter out of Toledo and therefore away from her ex for a long time. Our son lives in Columbus, so she would have family support if she moved.

My wish? That he get the job and that it propels the relationship forward (Lord willing, if the time is right) so that the young man is unwilling to move without her.

We'll see if I will ride or not. And thank God my daughter never reads my blog!