Low: By the end of the day on Saturday, I felt as stuffed as if I had spent the whole day gorging on delicious food (which is true!). That is not much of a low but it is what I have!
Highs:
1) With the help of our mom, my sister planned and hosted the best wedding shower I have ever attended. (And I am not just saying that because it was mine!) She took all my “It would be fun if…” suggestions and blended them with her creativity to make a fun, laid-back shower. We invited ladies of all ages and let the youngest girls volunteer to be models for the toilet paper wedding dress game. I am not sure whether they had more fun letting us older ladies dress them up or tearing off the toilet paper at the end! We had delicious brunch food and a coffee/tea bar with my favorite homemade gingerbread syrup, too.
2) On Saturday afternoon, our group of five girls met up for coffee since the three out-of-towners were here for the shower. (We have been close since we were in senior high girls Bible study together). We caught up on new details and enthusiastically chatted about weddings, babies, pregnancy, husbands, and whether it is easier to parent boys or girls. (So far there are three sons in our group with another expected in May, so none of us really know.)
What were your lows and highs from the past week?
Lows & Highsis a Stories from the Stairs weekly feature. Feel free to join in by posting your lows and highs in the comments or by posting a link to your lows and highs blog post.
I am absolutely not an expert on boys. My information is based completely on my experience and observations from years of living with brothers and having friends who are boys. Many of these can apply to men as well as boys. This set of Field Notes is mainly addressed to girls.
1. Boys do not think the way girls do. (In general, I find people do not all think the same regardless of gender, so it is best to not assume anyone thinks like I do.)
2. Communicating through hints and subtlety usually does not work, so be clear about what you think, feel, or want.
A. Side Note: To improve the clarity of your communication, think about what message you want the other person to get. Summarize that message in one or two sentences. Tell the other person the summary.
B. Side Note: Just because you are clear does not mean they will do what you want.
2. Boys look for reactions. If you like something a boy does or says, respond positively and promptly. Do not try to play it cool or ignore them. They want a positive reaction. If they do not get it, they may try for a negative one.
A. Side Note: Sometimes they try for a negative reaction simply because it is fun to see girls get annoyed, embarrassed, or freaked out.
3. Boys generally love to watch girls get embarrassed, especially if they turn bright red! (See previous Note about reactions.)
4. Boys really can and do think nothing sometimes. This is very relaxing for them, so please do not stress them out by insisting they must have been thinking about something.
5. When young boys do not know what to do, they initiate a random, usually playful, physical altercation. (See earlier Note about reactions.) When one of my brothers was about ten, he saw me reading on the sofa and proceeded to fling himself onto, sprawling the entire length of said sofa and squishing my book. While freeing my book, I asked him nicely twice to get off, to which he just grinned and acted like he could not move. I marked my place in the book, hooked an arm under one of his legs and grabbed his ear with my other hand. Before he could react, I stood up and he hollered loudly as I carried him into another room where our mom was reading. “Mom,” I said depositing him next to her, “You need to deal with your son.” He still indignantly bemoans how “mean” I was in that instance, but he does so with a mischievous grin.
Brian & I celebrated Christmas four times and drove quite a bit between each one. We also tried to spend lots of quality time together and with our families, so I skipped Lows & Highs last week and this post covers the past two weeks.
Low: My grandparents on my dad’s side both had a virus during the week before Christmas. To give them more time to recover & to keep Eli from catching the bug, we postponed our Christmas celebration with them.
High: 1) We celebrated Christmas with Brian’s relatives (most of whom I met before) and I was warmly included with the rest of the grandchildren, complete with my own Christmas stockings. 2) We enjoyed Christmas with my family too, twice! It was fun to see how our Christmas dinner photos changed since last year; we have added three new people (fiancé, Brian; nephew, Eli; cousin-in-law, Catherine). 3) Brian was surprised and pleased by the rag quilt I made him for Christmas.
What were your lows and highs from the holidays?
Lows & Highsis a Stories from the Stairs weekly feature. Feel free to join in by posting your lows and highs in the comments or by posting a link to your lows and highs blog post.
If you noticed that my last two Lows & Highs posts left out a day, you may have wondered about my counting skills. The omission was intentional because, as someone wise told me, “That day deserves its own post.”
Brian proposed on December 11.
The Disclaimer
If you don’t like proposal stories, it’s cool if you want to stop reading now and join in on the next post. If you have not already read Ping-Pong Ball Sweetness, please do because it gives some context.
The Set-up
On Tuesday, December 11, I was on my way to work when I received a text message from Brian that he sent me an email and the link inside would explain. When I got to work and read the text, I opened the email to read, “Abby, Here’s the start of a little something to celebrate your graduation. Love, Brian.” When I followed the link inside, it took me to a YouTube video that was set as private and I could not view it. I sent off a text of my own and Brian had the video fixed a short time later.
The Videos
The video was of Brian explaining that he wanted to do something special for my upcoming graduation, so he made me several videos. Every couple hours, he emailed the link to another video. The six videos featured him in different locations that are meaningful to me around my hometown: The campus building where we have weekly college student Bible study, the adult ed center where I volunteer, my parents’ house, and so on. In each place, he told me something he notices and admires about me.
Mid-afternoon, Brian sent the fifth video and texted me, “I just hit send on the next one. Hopefully these have made u smile all day.”
I replied, “Oh, they have definitely made me smile! If I didn’t already want to spend forever with u, the videos would have convinced me.”
“That reaction makes me smile. I’m glad I’m sending them all in one day instead of piecemeal.”
Around 3:30 p.m., he sent the last video where he sat in his office over four hours away and said even though I said I did not want graduation gifts, he had some help and a present was waiting for me at home.
I worked the next hour in suspense until I could leave for the day. Since I was sure Brian was waiting by his phone to hear my reaction to his gift, I sent him a text that I was on my way home but had to stop at the store for a few things first and would let him know when I got home.
The Question
At home, I entered through the back door and saw a path lined with ping-pong balls, leading through the kitchen to the living room. I shed my bags and coat and followed the path to where Brian stood waiting in a ping-pong-ball heart.
Surprised, I asked, “What are you doing here?” as I walked over to greet him. Yes, it was a silly question. As Brian pointed out later, I should have known as soon as I saw the ping-pong-ball path but I was surprised to the point of being flabbergasted because I came home expecting a nice bouquet of flowers or something similar. My memories are blissful and a bit hazy after this point. He got down on one knee to propose, and then pulled out a ring box and opened it but I could not take my eyes off his face. After I said, “Yes, of course” and we were hugging, he said something about putting on the ring. “Oh, yeah, I didn’t actually see it before.”
He showed it to me again and helped me put it on. Then he told me my plans for the evening had changed and our parents were meeting us for dinner at six. What he did not tell me was that his sister and my sister, brother-in-law, and baby nephew were also meeting us! It was a sweet surprise and we had a terrific time celebrating with our families.
After Brian and I recounted the story of how he proposed, my mom looked over and told Brian he did a good job, “You gave her a story.”
Low: For the second week in a row, I cannot think of a low.
High: I graduated on Saturday with my M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language! I met up with family for barbecue at my favorite local joint in Emporia, KS, and lunch was as tasty as I remembered from my undergrad days. After lunch, we headed to the campus for the commencement ceremony. We were early, so I took the opportunity to show them around a bit, pointing out different buildings I used to frequent. In a stroke of genius, someone at the university had decided to hold separate ceremonies for the graduate and undergraduate students. You may wonder how long a December ceremony with only graduate students at a small-ish university would take. You are in luck; my dad timed it at 49 minutes. That was the shortest graduation ceremony I have ever attended, and I greatly enjoyed it!
What were your lows and highs from this week?
Lows & Highsis a Stories from the Stairs weekly feature. Feel free to join in by posting your lows and highs in the comments or by posting a link to your lows and highs blog post.
Last Saturday, we celebrated early Thanksgiving and fall birthdays with relatives. We met at my grandparents’ farm early to help with the food preparations and “a few” outside projects. Brian was in town for the weekend, so he and I rode up with my parents and were greeted by my grandparents and aunt, Jan.
Project 1: Garage Window
We did not plan to replace any windows but, when we arrived, Grandpa told us he put Blondie (their very intelligent, rebellious, and undisciplined retriever mix who is very noisy at night) in the garage the night before because she was barking so much and keeping them awake. She was so upset and determined to get out that she jumped up onto the work bench and through the garage window, breaking the glass. Dad quickly measured the glass and called the nearest lumber yard to order it, only to find out that they closed in 20 minutes and were a 15-minute drive away! Dad handed Brian his car keys and the two of us took off, finding the store and making our purchases with 2 minutes to spare.
Project 2: Back Door
Due to the shifting ground and foundation, the door between the kitchen and back porch/mudroom would not close completely, letting a cold draft into the house. While Brian and I were on our errand, Dad lifted the door off the hinges, planed it, and re-hung it.
Project 3: Bushes
While we arrived back at the farm, Luke and Christine had arrived and the growing work crew began taking out all the bushes next to the house, which died during the drought last summer. Ben (the youngest) came during lunch and helped clean out the last of the bushes.
Sara, Josh, and Eli showed up and we all stopped to greet them and then we ladies went inside with Sara and Eli. Jan and Grandma both got to meet and hold Eli for the first time.
Project 4: Gutters
Mid-afternoon, I walked outside to see if the men needed any drinks or snacks. I chuckled to see Ben up on a ladder, cleaning leaves and dirt out of the gutters while the other men stood around and talked. When my uncle, Brent, came later, he brought the rest of the replacement bushes (we brought the others) and they planted yews and roses in place of the dead bushes.
Todd and Catherine, my cousin and his new wife, arrived in time for our celebratory supper. We had a terrific time, with all 15 of us crowded around the table, laughing and eating and talking. Most of us were more than ready for bed that night, though!
“Hi, Eli! Remember me? You do?!”
“What are you doing all the way over there?”
“Um, you got a little something right… there.”
I’m a tad late in the day on my InstaFriday post, but I made it!
This is the end of of 31 Days with the Nester and 1238 other bloggers. I plan to resume weekly posts like Lows & Highs and Insta-Friday. I also plan to add a weekly random question post. Other posts will continue to be as I feel inspired and find time to write.
Did you dress up for Halloween as a kid? Do you dress up for Halloween now?
My siblings and I did dress up for Halloween, but I remember thinking, “So we dress up in costumes, go to see the neighbors and they give us candy… How is this different from most days?” We liked dressing up so much that we had a collection of costume clothes that we wore on wild, imaginative adventures in the backyard.
I had not dressed up for Halloween in years, but was invited to a costume party this year. Brian was Waldo and I went as Carmen Sandiego.* I have short, blonde hair, so many people did not recognize me at first (in person and in photos). It was easily the most fun costume I have had as an adult!
*Carmen and Waldo, hard-to-find globetrotters who wear red, are much more popular couple costumes than I first realized.
What is the most adventurous activity you have ever done?
I traveled solo to Seoul to meet friends for vacation and tourism around South Korea. I flew from Tulsa to Dallas to Tokyo to Seoul. On the flight from Dallas to Tokyo, I helped a Taiwanese man change the video screen at his seat from Spanish to English. He was haphazardly pressing buttons but clearly could not read Spanish so I offered to help. He looked at me confusedly and I realized he did not speak much English either. I pointed at the display and asked, “May I help?” He nodded and I tapped at the screen, finding the menu marked “Idiomas” with only a few mistakes. On the way home, I had another adventure but it takes longer to tell than I have time today.
My parents told me they gave me the only name they agreed on at the time: Abby.
Not Abigail, just Abby, because Dad thought Abigail sounded prissy and he did not want a prissy daughter. It did not really help, but he did try and I was eventually nurtured out of the prissiness.
I get amused when people occasionally call me Abigail. It does not bother me – I view it as a nickname. If they ask, though, I smile and tell them I’m Abby, not Abigail, but they can call me either one.
Abby comes from Abigail which means “my father is joy” or “my father’s joy,” depending on how you translate the original Hebrew.
What’s something you would do more often if you had the time?
I would play the piano more. I am definitely not talented at music or rhythm but my mom believed her father’s philosophy that skill at any of the arts can be taught. I took lessons from an excellent and very patient teacher from ages 11-19, only stopping because piano lessons no longer fit into my class schedule. I still play occasionally but would love to practice more often.
