Family & Friends

Categories Family & Friends

Anatomy of a Nerd

1 Comment by

It’s finals week for the students–so it’s Spirit Week for workers. And today is Nerd Day.

Hair-put up in bun per guidelines–but with bumps all along due to not combing after showering

Glasses-nerd glasses compliments of Dad–they were his first pair. I just happen to be able to see through them (having apparently inherited his eyesight.) You probably can’t see the “geek fix” blue wire holding one earpiece on–but that’s an original invention of my dad’s.

Glasses chain-utilitarian nylon rope bought by myself for our family trip to Yellowstone last summer.

Mismatched shirt and sweater vest-my own shirt with my brother Dan’s sweater vest. Note that the vest is tucked into my pants.

Frumpy, too short pants-compliments of my sister Grace, these suckers have me in a perpetual state of painful wedgie. (Sorry, that was probably TMI.)

White Tube socks-stretched out and stained, these tube socks came from the box of socks my brother Tim just can’t stand to throw out.

Gray Velcro hold shoes-another offering from my Dad. He loves the velcro closure for mowing lawns and the like–makes them easier to get off with dirty hands. It just so happens they’re only a size too large for me.

Okay–so now you know our secret. My entire family is composed of nerds. But, at least we don’t (generally) wear all this stuff together. Apart from his sweater vests (which he doesn’t tuck in), Daniel is generally well dressed (for a nerd). Despite his velcro shoes, my dad no longer wears huge glasses with blue wire holding them together. And Grace actually fits the pants she lent me (although I don’t think she wears them often, the waistline being a bit funny.)

We actually tend to look somewhat normal. Well, except maybe me–but that’s another story altogether.

Categories Family & Friends, Thankfulness

Shopping in my sister’s closet

1 Comment by

Just this morning, as I was deciding on what to wear, I thought that it had been a long time since I bought some new clothes.

I contemplated going shopping–but I’m sure glad I didn’t follow through. Because this evening when I got home from Bible Study, my sister had a whole pile of clothes for me to try on. She’d been cleaning out her closet and was offering me a look before she gave them away.

If I’d have gone shopping, I probably would have purchased one to five items and spent 10-50 dollars. As it was, I didn’t spend a dime–and gained thirteen shirts, one dress, five skirts, two pairs of slacks, two camisoles, and a bathing suit. I challenge even the best garage saler or used store shopper to top that!

Thanks, Anna!

Categories Family & Friends

My Brother Tim

1 Comment by

Have you met my brother Tim?

Timothy
He’s a great kid. He drove me home from McDonalds a couple of hours ago and came in to chat for a bit.

We’ve been talking ever since. Topics of discussion? Fascism, Communism, and Christianity. The cause, or lack of cause, of World War I. The real reason the Berlin Wall fell. How Communism will fall in China. Economic Theory. Debt, minimum wage, and supply and demand. The record of nature and the Scriptures. Big Bang Theory and how God stretched out the heavens. Point of reference in Genesis 1. Bill Clinton and Kyoto treaty.

I love my brother Tim.

Categories Family & Friends

BUNCO PARTY!!!

Leave a comment by

We had a Bunco Party last night for our ladies fellowship.

Ladies playing Bunco
Ladies playing Bunco
Ladies playing Bunco

Bunco is a great game for family gatherings, mixers, and the like. Have you ever played?

All you need is one bell, a pair of dice for every four people, and a pen and piece of paper for each person. Everyone sits down at a table of four with a pair of dice. Partners (sitting across from each other) acrue points together. To start play, the “head table” rolls until they get double. When they get a double, they ring the bell, announce the number they had rolled double (the “Bunco number”), and play begins.

Each table starts rolling to acrue points. A single die of the “Bunco number” is worth 1 point, a double of any number except 3 is worth 5 points, a double of the Bunco number is worth 25 points, and a double 3 drops the team’s points to zero. A player continues to roll until they cease to acrue points (that is until they get a roll that DOES NOT contain the Bunco number or a double.) Then play passes to the next player.

Play ends when a team at the head table acrues 50 points–and has completed rolling. In other words, if the head table reaches 50 points, the current player must continue to roll until he gets a roll that DOES NOT contain the Bunco number or a double. When this occurs, the head table rings the bell. Each table may finish the current play, but may not pass the dice to another player.

Teams now determine table “winners” and “losers.” The “winners” at each table advance to the next higher table. The “losers” stay at their current table and move so that they are sitting next to each other rather than across from each other. This means that you get a new partner for every round. The exception to this is the head table. The winners from the head table remain where they are at, while the losers go to the bottom table. The winners from table 2 remain in their present team when they advance to the head table.

Each player records his or her points at the end of each round. When the final round is played (generally as determined by a set number of rounds or a set time), all players tally up their points. The person with the most points is the winner!

You really should try it–it’s great fun for all–and even the youngest children can enjoy it if they’re paired with an adult who can help them with the math. Of course, it’s also good math practice for those early elementary students!

Categories Family & Friends

Spoke too soon

1 Comment by

We (just barely) fit ourselves into the Suburban for our trip to Hu-Hot for Timothy’s birthday (a month late).

Kids in back of Suburban
Kids in back of Suburban

I commented that people don’t count us anymore–we’re old enough that they just assume we’re a bunch of kids hanging out together. So after we’d been at the restaurant a while, our waitress comes up and asks us, “Are you all brothers and sisters?” And then turning to Mom she says, “So you had seven kids? Like in ‘Seventh Heaven’.”

I guess I spoke too soon.

Categories Family & Friends, Reflections, Thankfulness

Luckiest girl on earth

1 Comment by

If I said I was the luckiest girl on earth, I wouldn’t be the first to say so. But that doesn’t change my general sense that I am indeed the luckiest girl on earth. And why might I be so lucky? What happy occasion heralds this joyous exclamation?

I began to realize it last night, when I told my family that it was official: Love Memorial Hall and AGN will be doing a bike-a-thon to raise money for Cedars Youth Services. We will be riding our bikes to the Missouri game on October 22. I mentioned that I should probably bring my bike back to the hall and start doing some serious riding before then. My mom told me that she’d gone out and gotten me a new inner tube for my bike as soon as she’d heard that I was possibly going to participate. My old tube was leaking around the stem and couldn’t be patched. My little brother Timothy put it on for me. But not only did he replace my inner tube, Timothy also prevented me from taking the bike back to the hall until he had adjusted the brakes so that they wouldn’t rub.

I’m the luckiest girl in the world because I have a family like no other. My sister offered to take me back to the hall in her new car, but took a bit of a circuitous route. First she dropped by Walmart to get me all of my little necessities–tissues, printer paper, deoderant. And not only that, she ran me by Wendy’s and got me a sandwich and a Frosty. What have I done to deserve my sister’s lavish gifts? Nothing. She works her butt off between going to school and her job as a Diet Tech, and I enjoy the fruits of her labours.

I’m the luckiest girl because for a seventh grade research paper, my dad brought me to UNL’s Love library. It was a research paper-why not go to a research library? He believed I could understand what I read and I was determined to prove him right. We wandered the stacks at midnight, searching for just the right book. We walked the stairs with crisp turns, pretending we were nerds without needing to pretend. In sixth grade, he got a book on HTML and wrote up an announcement to post on our family bulletin board. “Wanted: Web Designer. Must have at least a fifth grade education. Will train. Send resumes to…” I sent my resume in and got the job. We skipped, hand in hand, in the SAMS club parking lot on our way to get milk for the family.

I’m the luckiest girl because my mom spent five hours adjusting the bodice for a pattern I just couldn’t get to fit. It was supposed to be a simple pattern, the design of the dress would be a cinch to sew. I hadn’t counted on the adjustments–Mom patiently walked me through them. When I was in second grade, she read us The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I loved it and always will. When my fish died and she found it before I did, she flushed it so I wouldn’t have to. And when my bike had a leaky inner tube, that I didn’t even know about, she bought me a new inner tube.

I’m the luckiest girl because my sister Anna, though I once thought she was my worst enemy, is my best friend. Out of the blue, she announced to me that she was paying my car’s registration–“After all, I think you might have paid mine last year.” She’s at home because she can’t afford the hall, so she buys me everything I need to be comfortable here. She came and cooked for me on my busy day–despite the fact that everyday is her busy day. She never lets me dwell on crushes. She protects me from my own mind. To paraphrase Colonel Fitzwilliam, she takes prodigiously good care of me.

I’m the luckiest girl because I caught my brother Joshua as we were crossing Cornhusker Highway on our bikes today–going the opposite direction. I waved and shouted, and he was a bit embarrassed. But he’s my brother and it’s okay. When he’s in the middle of a deep history conversation and I break in with a piddling contextual question, he patiently answers. He lets me read his stories, even though I’ve always been a hard critic. And he took on my dish job when I went away to college.

I’m the luckiest girl because I’m always trying to one up my brother Daniel at busyness. I go to school and do a thousand piddly things. He goes to high school and works almost thirty hours a week. But that doesn’t mean he’s too busy to drive me around while the gas prices continue to rise. He’s always trying to torque me off about women’s lib, but I know that he respects me as a woman and as his sister. He started to work out and dropped fifty pounds after he scared himself at 200 lbs. And he had the grace to let me come to the gym and spot for him–even though I’d never done it before. He let me buy him some jeans for Christmas last year–even when I insisted on them being European style. And he asks me for clothing advice. He actually thinks my opinion matters.

I’m the luckiest girl just because my brother John is alive and is my brother. Because he loves missions and is on our church’s mission team with me. Because he loves children and begged me to let him help out in the nursery–we work together so that he’s not a boy alone with them. He’s got more energy than anyone I know, and he never lets anything get him down. He loves people and he wants to do everything within his power to help them. He’s the only one of my siblings who doesn’t correct me when I sit down at the piano. And he actually begs me to cut his hair–even though I cut his ear the one time I tried.

I’m the luckiest girl in the world because I can talk to my brother Timothy about books. We started with Lemony Snicket, back when he hated to read. Now he’s begging me to read Eragon, because he thinks it’s the best thing in the world. We read Phantom of the Opera out loud together in three days. We discussed our melancholy over loving and hating Eric at the same time. Tim’s growing up and his voice is deepening, but he isn’t outgrowing his sister. He comes up to me at youth group and gives me a hug, tells me about his day. He’s gotten into fixing bikes recently, and wasn’t content until he’d gotten my seat to just the right height.

I’m the luckiest girl in the world because my little sister Grace spent the night with me on Saturday. She helped me prepare the Sunday school lesson, and tried to pick out what I wore. She asked my advice on the right kind of eyeshadow to get as her first makeup. She asked me if I thought Meg Cabot’s All-American Girl was appropriate for her. (It isn’t.) She asked me “What does eighties music sound like?” Grace sewed me a patchwork pillow that perfectly matches my decor, being careful that all the little people on the toile fabric pointed in the same direction. And she only glares at me but does no more when I call her Trixie for the thousandth time.

And that’s only my immediate family. I could go on for pages and pages about the rest as well. How my grandpa checked my antifreeze and gave me an extra jug before I came back down from their farm last spring break. How my grandma and my aunts and I always get into huge theological discussions every time we’re together. How my Aunt Martha-ma-ba took me for a drive and asked me why I was thinking about going into teaching. How my Aunt Lisa, new to the family, had my sister and me over for a week when we were eight or nine. How my Uncle Jim solemnly informed us not to drink the pickle juice out of the pickle jar until the pickles were all gone. How my Uncle Leo places coffee filters on the girls’ heads and suggests that we become Mennonite. How my Aunt Alice organized a family dance after we discovered that we enjoyed dancing together at my cousin’s wedding. Yes, I could go on forever, because I’m the luckiest girl in the world.

Categories Family & Friends

Photos in the Paper

Leave a comment by

So I was in the newspaper today-on the front page. Okay, more precisely, my photo was on the front page of the Daily Nebraskan. But–before you run out an secure yourself a copy, be warned. It’s not a good picture.

You see, the photo was actually of one of my kitchen-mates flipping sticky rice. I had been standing in the kitchen talking to another kitchen-mate when they entered the room for a picture. So, I’m in the background of Taem’s sticky rice shot.

Adding to the “badness” of the photo was the fact that it was shot at a crazy angle. The photographer was standing on a windowsill trying to get a good shot of the rice in motion. Not only that, I was laughing because the photographer was asking Taem to flip the rice higher and higher and higher–and the rice was breaking up and flying all over the room. So the picture definitely shows some big teeth and squinty eyes-Lovely!

Note to the hall for next time we beg for an article–Figure out when the photographer’s coming so we don’t have to stage a sticky rice flipping with yesterday’s leftovers.

Categories Family & Friends

Spring Break Plans

Leave a comment by

I’m super excited–my Grandma just e-mailed me back about spending Spring Break with her and Grandpa. She wrote, “Grandpa says, ‘tell Rebekah we would be honored if she would spend her spring break with us instead of going to Florida.’ I second the motion.” So, I’ll go up on Monday morning and stay until Wednesday or Thursday. I so need the opportunity to rest, to focus on Christ, to get away from everything. Traveling, in and of itself, isn’t enough. I don’t need to get away from a place. I need to get away from doing. I need to go to a place where I can just be. Grandpa and Grandma’s is that kind of place–as Grandma said in her e-mail: “Life here gets pretty boring so you should be able to do a lot of reading, tv, walking, cedar tree cutting, and maybe even a scrabble game or two.” There’s nothing I’d love more.