December 2015 Update:
I’m a googler.
There I said it. I love to google.
And since you can find out a lot about a person by what they google, here is
a random snapshot of my browser history from past 12 months:
I don’t know if you are aware of the fact that I’m turning
forty soon. (I hope you all are gasping right now out of respectful surprise.)
So last spring I got the great idea to make a short documentary of me and two
of my friends (who are approximately 32 days older than I) facing our greatest
fears. Then, we’d show the movie at the Park
Theater downtown where we’d have the biggest cocktail party ever and each
do a song/dance number (including Total Eclipse of the Heart), which would be another fear—if not for us, then for
our audience. We’d also, of course, make a music video reenacting Uptown Funk, with Greg following us
around in the Volvo. Everyone would laugh, some would cry, but all would agree
it was the party of the century. Sadly here’s another fun fact about me: I’m a
talker. As in I’ll tell everyone my grand ideas, until they get all excited
about them, then I’ll slowly back out because it’s too much work. (Can’t help
it, and I’m too old to change.) So long story short, I’m not doing it anymore.
I may, however, throw myself a “favorite things” party in January…but it’s too
soon to tell for sure.
I think it was March when Greg asked me if I’d ever thought
about moving. My first thought was, “Oh crap, he wants to move back to Africa!”
But no, he just meant that since we live on a busy street, and were not really
pool people (correction—the girls are “pool people,” we are not) would we want
to live someplace else. Two weeks later I found a place on Zillow, and after the second viewing we made an offer on the
condition that our place sold. So that gave us Spring Break for Greg to quick
finish his restored, hand-planked custom oak flooring and the renovated living
room. He did it! The house sold in two
days, and we moved the end of May, just in time to coincide with the busiest
time of Greg’s school year. (He is still alive.) And we love our new
mid-century modern home. In keeping with tradition, Greg is renovating our current
3-season room to turn it into a 4-season dining room. We (Greg and I) have
never had an ounce of regret about this move. Sadly our little pool people have
taken longer coming around, but they admittedly are enjoying the open space and
having their good friends right around the corner.
My new favorite show is Blackish,
starring one of Diana Ross’s daughters.
I’m still working full time as the Resident Programs
Coordinator at Freedom Village where I get to plan many fun programs,
entertainment, and trips. Last spring my
boss pitched a 12-day food & wine trip through Tuscany, and we were
planning on going in the Fall until some residents had to back out. So instead
we ended up going to Midland and Frankenmuth, of course, for three days and two nights. I don’t mean to
sound ungrateful, but, comeon!
I had to search this because Greg says I’m “of the
generation” that hates to commit to things (I think he said this right after I
told him I’m anti-traditions.) I’m sorry, but why on earth would I put a tree
in my house just because “that’s what people do?” It’s fine and good (and we
did get one) but I just don’t like being told that I have to do something because “everyone else does!”
My Millennials search led me to this. I’d never heard of it
before!
It dawned on me, after I dropped the girls off at their
private school in the Volvo, that I may be a Yuppie. Nope, not young enough (me, nor the Volvo),
not rich enough, not big city enough.
Volvo drivers are people who value quality and
safety over ostentation. They are often liberal, well educated, and upper
middle class. Although the cars are pricey to buy and maintain, Volvo drivers
see them as works of art--well-made machinery that protects their passengers,
other drivers, and even pedestrians from the hazards of the road. Volvo drivers
appreciate the cars' understated comfort and the manufacturer's concern for the
environment.
There, that’s Greg’s paragraph. This year Greg
has trimmed trees, fixed bathrooms, laid floors, replaced timing belts and
struts, gardened, taught 200 teenagers English, film production and media, read
almost nightly to his daughters, and planned a surprise weekend for me and some
friends to see Beth Moore in Toronto! (Until I found out about it and took over
the planning. We stayed at my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Len’s place, toured a bit
of the city with my cousins, had a fantastic time…and Greg got all the credit!)
What a Volvo driver.
Lace or textile furs. See, this is why I’m an
“anti-traditionalist.”
anti-traditionalist
Apparently this isn’t really a word.
not bound by traditional ways or beliefs: a nontraditional couple who are planning a very unconventional wedding.
Yeah, I can see that.
I had to see for myself, because Greg is
often a bit of an alarmist. (And yes, apparently there’s some horrible banana
disease that may wipe them out in the matter of years.) Greg informed us of
this while the girls were quietly enjoying a banana. Other areas of alarm? It
turns out nail polish contains highly toxic chemicals (including formaldehyde)
which are particularly dangerous for developing girls. (“So…” Elia said, “I
shouldn’t be biting off my polish?”) Apparently the idea of his wife skydiving
is not “prudent” (a mother of two should not put herself in danger like that!”),
the idea of his children owning a trampoline is not “safe” (after some googling I had to agree with him on this
one.) He thinks he can pin-point my monthly freak-outs (neither true, nor wise),
and he thinks his body is conspiring against itself by being forgetful in the
morning, so that his adrenals kick in when he runs home to get his forgotten
computer/lunch/pants. He also has the keen sense that people are watching us--just
because I “refuse to” close our curtains. (We have a wooded back yard…granted
we can see our neighbors now that the leaves have fallen.) He came home the other night, said he’d driven
by the back of our house, and “It’s like the Schemper show out there!” Greg
also is starting to think that after three months of me putting off cutting his
hair, I’m trying to make him “look bad.” Bless his ever-thinking, ever-working,
ever-lovin’ heart! But who are you going to believe? Me, or some scraggly long-haired
guy?
I’m still cutting my own hair. And it looks
like it, so I think I’m going to stop.
Yes, we still have the children! (That’s
who I was referring to when I was talking about the “pool people.”) This year,
in an effort to stream-line things, I’ve decided to only speak my family’s love
languages to them. But in order to do this, I needed to be sure I knew what
they were. Sure enough, Elia feels most loved from Physical touch, and gifts. Kate, on the other hand, really enjoys quality time, and Words of
affirmation. So now the plan is to hold Elia while playing a game with Kate,
saying nice things to them the whole time. Are you freaking kidding me?!?!
I’m still working on it.
Apparently I, at one point, told the girls
that they could each pick three things to do for the summer. I then changed it
to two. Then zero. As you can imagine, the “pool people” were rather aghast at
my change of mind. Not only had we taken them from their natural habitat (the
pool) they no longer could do a fun art camp or horse camp! On an upside, they
did get to go with us to the Dykstra reunion in the mountains of Georgia, then
with Greg and his parents to a Schemper gathering in Colorado, and a weekend at
a cottage with friends. So they’re not hurting or anything, but now that I
think about it, I can see where I might be a frustrating person to be with. Ah
well.
This is perhaps the only syndrome I wish I
could get.
Kate loves to read. She is always working
on at least two books at a time, and begs to go to the library every weekend.
To celebrate Kate’s tenth birthday, I took her to an exotic location (my
parent’s house in Byron Center—they were out of town) for a long weekend of
just the two of us! We cooked, shopped, relaxed, and talked about things ten
year old girls talk to their moms about, and it was delightful for both of us.
Hard-pressed to top this trip, (where do you go from Byron Center? Though in
our defense, as Kate said, “Papa and Gran’s house is like a resort!”) Greg took
Kate to Chicago for a weekend in June. They saw Blue Man Group, ate, shopped, and talked about things ten year old
girls like to talk to their dads about. They had a blast. (Elia of course was
highly jealous and is planning her ten-year trips as we speak.) Kate has turned
our furnace room into her school room (for playing purposes). She likes to keep
her room neat, and likes to keep things organized and her bed made. Kate has a
softer voice (like her mother), and smiles a lot. She appears to be a morning
person (like her mother) and follows me around the house talking about the
things she’ll do that day (I think, I can’t quite hear her). I’m pretty sure
she’s the only ten year old girl in Holland with an autographed & framed
picture of Dick Van Dyke on her nightstand. (We’re still loving his show!) Kate
Jayne is sweet enough to let her sister sleep in her bed with her when she gets
scared, (it’s been 2 months now), but every once in a while she’ll put her foot
down when it comes to Elia. For example, the other day Elia was doing something
to Kate (tipping her over in her chair?) and Kate calmly said, “You’re getting
paid for this! No, I mean I’m paying you for this!”
Elia (8 years old) kept asking me to teach
her knitting, but we would get too frustrated, until I happened upon this gem.
Now Elia has made skeins and skeins of 4-stich knitted strands. When Elia gets
started on something, she has a hard time stopping. And she likes to surprise
people with gifts, so the other day after spending two hours on the living room
floor, she found herself surrounded by paper snowflakes and highly stressed.
She said, “You don’t know the pressure I’m under!” Turns out she wanted to make
a snowflake for all of Greg’s students. I’ve found that Elia has a near-perfect
tune and phrase recollection, so she will often be singing songs or quoting phrases
she hears here or there (‘We have fun, we have fun…”) You can imagine my
surprise when we were driving past the old house to see they’d pulled out the
big bush to put in an egress window…Elia shook her head solemnly, and said,
“That was a damn good bush.” (She says she heard it in To Kill a Mockingbird.) I
made the mistake of putting the presents under the tree right away this year,
and it has nearly killed Elia to not open them. In fact, when I came home
yesterday she handed me a jar she’d made at school full of popsicle sticks, on
each she’d written instruction of something to do. She, herself, did the honors
and pulled the first stick (before I’d taken my coat off, mind you) and low and
behold it said, “Everyone gets to open one present!” I’m not sure she yet
understands why we didn’t listen to the stick.
I virtually read Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (I say
virtually because I skimmed it on my sister-in-law’s smart phone). Now, this
woman speaks my language! The point I really took home from her is that you
can’t sort through other people’s stuff, they need to do that. So I sat the
girls down and we went through every single item of their clothes, and I asked
them to hold each one and see if it still brought them joy (sounds weird? Read
the book!). Turns out every single item brings joy to Elia. And there is no advice
for this in the book, as the author, herself, is childless.
After a friend asked if I wanted to try
“Whole-30” with her, and after I (of course) googled it because I’d never heard
of it before, we, along with a group of friends from church, completed the
30-day cleanse in September. On the first day of October I incorporated a bit
of dairy, some chocolate, a few fermented grapes, and have otherwise been
sticking with the plan. So, yes, if you’re keeping track, were you to invite
the Schemper family over for a meal you might notice that Greg doesn’t touch
the gluten, Elia won’t touch the chicken (ever since she wrote a report on pollos), Kate swears she’s allergic to
onions and mushrooms, and I will not eat grains of any kind. Honestly, it’s a
wonder why anyone ever wants to be with us. Though no one knew all of this
before now, so forget I said anything.
Guess what I started doing? I couldn’t get the
idea of a trampoline out of my head, so I got myself a mini-tramp (also known
as a “rebounder” to make people over 40 feel better about what they do.) It
actually is rather good for you…and fun! Plus, it gives people something else
to watch when they’re driving past “The Schemper Show”!
Just wondering, because I think I heard Molly
purr once…when she was being petted by Greg.
No, not for my parents. Yet. My beloved Grandma
Dykstra very recently moved into an assisted living place just down the street
from my parents in Byron Center. Doing what I do, I have a lot of time to
reflect on what it means to grow older. One of “my old people” said that
growing old is not to be taken for granted, because it’s a privilege only given
to some. But it sure can be hard, and sad, having one’s youth stolen by the years.
I think my point in this is, yes, life goes too quickly at times, but also, our
lives here are not how they were meant to be. I’ve watched so many people I
love have the walls around them just crumble. And when we’re standing close
enough to them, we can take a hit from some of those bricks, but can’t seem to
hold them up. So without anything better to say, I will end this year with a blessing:
May the bricks not strike you too hard. May you
find joy in things like rebounding, reading, finger-knitting, foreign accents,
and bananas (while we still have them). And may our Lord bless you, and keep
you, may he shine his face upon you and be gracious to you, and may he grant
you his peace!
With lots of love,
Greg, Sarah, Kate, Elia, and Molly, the cat.
