Lessons of 2012

It's time for the obligatory end of the year post, summing up all the wonderful moments of The Next Step from the last year. To be honest, this has been a tough year for me with this blog. Sometimes I think it doesn't matter or I fear I've run out of new things to write about. I've considered quitting many times, but something (Someone?) keeps me going. If nothing else, it's a way to record what I'm learning, perhaps leaving a trail of bread crumbs for my children to follow, taking them to the Source of my hope and the only One who can give real life. So rather than give you the top ten posts of the year, I've decided to offer a small sampling of the lessons I've learned in 2012, those things that have stuck with me long after the words were typed.

In Retaining Me I realized there's nothing wrong with me. (Although there was that time a reader suggested I seek professional psychiatric help . . . hmmm.) We get these notions God has a ton of work to do in us. Maybe it's the way the Bible talks about transforming us that makes us think we need to be totally retooled. Sure, God is constantly teaching and refining, but our essence remains His unique creation. I really like that.

In Buying God a Smoothie I gained new understanding that the nice things we do for others don't need to be known for God to value and honor our sacrifice.

In If they knew how much they were loved . . . , the untimely death of a young person in our community taught me we have no way of knowing how our lives impact others. It spurred me to tell people when I appreciate them.

Worry over my kids and their futures as adults brought me to God who showed me the best way to help them in For the Sake of My Kids.

An experience that changed both my view of God and myself came after an emotional and awe-inspiring weekend with friends. God, Rachelle and Ann Voskamp chronicles the day my impressions of God expanded dramatically. Ever since that day I've yearned, longed, ached to feel His presence like that again. No one will be able to tell me God is not real and intimately involved in our lives after that weekend.

Now it's your turn. Help me know more about you. How about some reciprocity? What lessons did you learn in 2012?



Photo Credit: jimmiehomeschoolmom

7 Quick Takes (Volume 216)

1) You may have noticed I've been MIA the last few weeks. In the busyness of the season, something had to give to save my sanity. Many thanks to my kids who offered to fill in for me and did a super job. I did try to get Kevin or Drummer Boy to do this week's edition, but neither one were too enthused. I even suggested Kevin and I could do them together to which he replied:

Kevin: Everyone would think you really did it anyway.

A lame excuse if you ask me, but it's probably time for me to get my act together. My head is about to explode with all the thoughts I haven't expressed. How will I ever get them out in a coherent way?

2) I spent far too much time hating this season. I can't tell you how often I thought or said, "It's just not right. All this rushing around and spending money on stuff nobody needs. It totally takes away the meaning. Where is the real celebrating of Jesus? I hate this." I got up each morning dreading the list of things I needed to knock off for the day.

On the Sunday before Christmas, tears rested just below the surface as the choir sang about Bethlehem and stillness and joy and all I wanted to do was be a sheep hanging out at the manger, not the woman who had all this wrapping and cooking and cleaning and people pleasing to do.

In the car on the way home, my sadness came out again and my husband, who rarely calls me on my crap, had enough.

Kevin: I wish you could just be happy. Everybody has stuff they have to do. Instead of hating it so much, just do it. We all have to.

Me: I know. I'm a whiner.

Kevin: You're not a whiner. You think about it too much.

He was right, of course, and his words were exactly what I needed to kick me out of my funk and get over myself already. Besides, he was helping me all the way. HE decorated the house, BY HIMSELF. He helped with the shopping. He set tables and picked up the house. He got groceries and anything else I needed, all while taking care of his own work and planning special services for church. My attitude was taking away from celebrating Jesus, not my circumstances.

Now, how do I remember this for next year?

3) One fantastic element of the season is having all my children together. While traveling to northeast Nebraska to celebrate with my side of the family at my sister's house, all four of our "kids" fell asleep in the van. Looking back at them made me wistful.

Me (to Kevin): Would you look at that? Right there is our life. This is what our life together has produced! Isn't it amazing? Can you even believe it?

Kevin raised his eyebrows in true my-wife-is-losing-it fashion and I took another look at the miracle. Both boys had their mouths hanging wide open, sleeping exactly how their mother does and I found it completely endearing.

And now you know why Kevin raises his eyebrows.

4) Ladies Man hasn't been feeling well, fighting a naggy sinus infection for weeks. You know how guys get when they're sick? Ladies Man is no exception. For days we heard this in the droopiest voice you can imagine.

Ladies Man: I just want it to be Christmas. Why can't it be Christmas?

It reminded me of long car rides when kids whine, "Are we there yet? How much longer?" He was hoping for a pBone, the latest rage for trombonists, a plastic trombone. You think it was worth the wait?


Yes, that's Drummer Boy creeping in the picture. This is the goofiness at my house when all the kids are home. Never a dull moment.

5) Ladies Man informed everyone we would be opening gifts by 8:30 Christmas morning. I was up before that and as I made my way down the hallway, I noticed Princess Dawdle was not in her bed. When I got down to the living room, I saw her and Drama Queen sprawled out on the couch and Ladies Man planted in another chair, all with their pillows and comforters, watching a movie.

Me: How long have you guys been up?

Ladies Man: We got up at four!

Me: FOUR?! Couldn't talk Drummer Boy into it, huh?

Drama Queen: He didn't want to get up, the poop.

I went into the kitchen to get a cup of tea and soon heard Drummer Boy singing.

Drummer Boy: It's Christmas. It's Christmas!

The rest of them joined him and I wondered if I was in a Twilight Zone episode. These aren't a bunch of eight-year-olds. My kids are 22, 19, 17 and 14!

Ladies Man: Can we wake up Dad?

Me: You probably already have!

Soon they were upstairs and I heard from the floor below, across the house, "SHHH. DON'T WAKE UP DAD!"

It was a super day of hanging out together, laying around, watching movies, eating junk and did I mention laying around? I was in my robe until 4:30! Then we cleaned up and went to Kevin's parent's house to celebrate with his side of the family that evening. Awesome, relaxing day.

6) Does anyone know at what age bodily functions and potty humor go away in families? I keep thinking we'll be maturing out of such silliness, but it seems like we'll never get out of it. Drama Queen put on Drummer Boy's present, "Merry Christmas, ya poop!" We're always guessing who farted. The boys are continually trying to hug their sisters in their nasty morning smelliness. Either my children are severely underdeveloped or they just don't take themselves too seriously. I'm hoping for the latter.

7) Despite the toilet jokes, we've had a great week together. But all good things must come to an end. Drummer Boy and Drama Queen leave us today to travel with the Husker band to the Capital One Bowl in Florida, but they'll be back for a few days before they return to school on the 7th. I hope you've had time to enjoy the people you love this holiday too.

Talk to you next year. Click over to Conversion Diary if you want to read more Quick Takes.

7 Quick Takes (Volume 215)

Since Ladies Man and Princess Dawdle wrote the Quick Takes last week, I thought I'd take my turn at it this week. Yeup...Drama Queen here. But between me and all of the readers out there, you can call me Queen Awesome. (Can't you just see Mom rolling her eyes?)

1) After dinner one night I was showing Dad and Ladies Man a super cute youtube video Mom and Princess Dawdle had found earlier this week. Here's the video. Watch the way these twins look at each other as their dad starts playing the guitar.


After watching this video...

Ladies Man: That's what my kids will look like.

Me: No it's not. Your kids won't fit in a high chair.

2) Earlier this week Dad tried a new cookie recipe. Cookies and cream cookies made with oreos...but he used the oreos with red filling instead of white, so the cookies turned out in this pukish looking pink color. Despite how nasty and strange they looked, they actually tasted pretty good.


3) This afternoon Ladies Man and I were upstairs in the attic being super boring and lame. He was messing on his xbox and I was sitting next to him on my laptop. Earlier in the day he and Princess Dawdle were talking about making a cake, so I asked him what kind of cake they wanted to make.

Ladies Man: I don't know. We just want to make a cake.

Me: Ok, so what kind of cake? What do you want it to look like?

Ladies Man: I don't know. I want it to taste like Christmas.

Me: How do we do that?

Ladies Man: Just look up Christmas cakes on Pinterest and maybe if we make one that looks like Christmas-y things, then it will taste that way.

Yeah...because that's how it works.

4) Onto the next cooking adventure in our house today. As Ladies Man, Princess Dawdle and I were in the kitchen trying to figure out everything we wanted to include on our "Christmas cake," Ladies Man was making his own little treat of chocolate covered mini candy canes. Here's how he did it.

First, he took a small ziploc bag and put Hershey kisses in it. Then he sealed the bag and held it under the boiling water spigot until the kisses were melted. He then poured the melted chocolate onto wax paper, and (using his dirty hands) rolled the candy canes around in the chocolate. Super nasty.




5) The last cooking project that took place in our house this week took me, Princess Dawdle, and Ladies Man a total of about 4 hours and was a total bust. We had a wonderful image in mind as we went to start. We were going to have a two tiered cake, each tier with two layers. In between the layers we would have green and red homemade frosting. Then we would frost the entire outside of the cake just in white, and on top of the whole cake we would put our master piece. This would consist of a Christmas tree, little presents and a walrus all molded out of rice krispies and homemade fondant. It was going to be amazing...

Princess Dawdle had issues opening the cake mix...


Making the fondant...


Making the rice krispies...


Green fondant for the Christmas tree...


Everything was going great until we tried to get the cakes out of the pans...


Admittedly, the first time we put cakes in we forgot to spray the pans. But the second time we did and they STILL turned out like this when we flipped the pans over to get the cakes out! Everything went downhill from there. Our rice krispies wouldn't harden enough for Ladies Man to mold them, our fondant wasn't working very well and all of our spirits were being crushed. We decided to work with what we had.

This is our attempt at trying to patch a few layers of cake and frosting together...


And the final product (complete with a nasty looking fondant tree in the middle)...


Yes, it's edible. No, we're not proud of it. Maybe sometime in the future we will try again...just not in the near future. What a disaster.

6) Since Princess Dawdle and Ladies Man had a snow day yesterday we spent the day doing a lot of random things (I promise there will be no more cooking stories). We decided to color some festive Christmas penguins. Of course, Ladies Man just had to outdo everyone and paint his own picture. Pretty good though, right?


7) The last thing I'll share with you all is Ladies Man's project of making a miniature trombone for a little boy at our church. All he has to do is add a kazoo for the mouthpiece and put the boy's name in the bell of the trombone. Completely homemade! Again, more impressive work by Mr.Artsy-Fartsy.


That's all for this week! Wishing you a Merry Christmas from the Boesiger household!

Isaiah 7:14 ~ Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Catch more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

7 Quick Takes (Volume 214)

Hey! Whats up?! Ladies Man and Princess Dawdle here. Today we are taking care of the Quick takes for our mom.

Numba 1: So it's almost Christmas and here are a couple tips how to shop cheap for that special person in your life.

-Make a bird feeder out of wood (optional: for the extreme people you could make a squirrel feeder out of wood)
-Wrap them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a note attach to it saying "I love you more than peanut butter loves jelly."
-Put coupons in their stockings. Over time that will save them a lot of money.
-Dollar General.
-Tie dye old underwear to make them think it's new!
-Tell them they were on the naughty list and get them nothing.

Numba 2: Over the holidays you get a lot of family time, so here's a couple family bonding activities you can do over your Christmas break.

-Hunt Squirrels.
-Bake cookies with love.
-Have a quilt sewing party.

Numba Tres: Now you have probably heard that I, Ladies Man, am pretty tall. But I have found someone bigger than me. He is a friend of our brother's.


Boom! I am 6ft and 5.5 inches tall. Guess how tall this guy is? He is 6ft and 8 inches tall!

Numba 4: There is an essential part of celebrating any holiday and that is pranking family and friends (Always remember pranking is fun until someone gets hurt, then it's just plain hilarious, but in all seriousness be safe and always wear your seat belt.) Here are some pranks you can pull during the Holiday Season.

- Wrap EVERYTHING in their room.
- Wake them up on Christmas Day by throwing a snow ball at their head.
- Fill their room with packing peanuts and turn the A/C down to make a winter wonderland.

Numba 5: There are a lot of arts and crafts stuff you can do over this holiday break but they are getting old and boring now, so here's some new ideas of what you could make for Christmas.

- Instead of a gingerbread house make a gingerbread mansion.
- Instead of baking Christmas cookies go all Cake Boss style and make a 3 tier cake with candy canes on it.
- Instead of making the traditional popcorn and cranberry string make an apple and McDonald's chicken nuggets string.
- Instead of making homemade ornaments make a TREE.

Numba 6: This one is for the kids. Do you have an awesome teacher that you would like to give a gift for Christmas? Well here's some ideas.

- You can always go the safe route and give them an apple but better yet just give them a watermelon.
- For music teachers get a kazoo.
- You could draw a portrait of them with Santa Claus.
- You could give them that homework assignment that was due 3 weeks ago.
- Make a mini Christmas tree out of macaroni noodles.

Numba 7: We couldn't think of a another quick take so we would like you to enjoy this picture of a bulldog in a baby swing.


Thanks for reading all the way through this post it really means a lot to us, and...."We Wish you a Merry Christmas" (you're supposed to sing what's in the quotes)
Have a Great Day!

Catch more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

Beauty in Sadness

Pain resided in the room, both from recent trials and difficult pasts.

Worry, concern, questions flooded. Bad memories stirred. Tears fell.

And answers were hard to come by.

But amid the hardness, a glimmer appeared in the form of shared experience.

I know what you mean.

I never understood that either.

I know God's in control, but . . .

And a group of ordinary women, whose hearts were pricked with compassion for each other, not knowing what else to do, joined together to appeal to a God they've chosen to follow no matter the cost. Though nothing was solved, His Spirit united. Sadness mixed with the knowledge that God can use it for good even when we don't understand, gave hope to press on, to keep believing. God reminded His ways are not ours.

We felt His love through each other.

Sweet realness.

Pure beauty.

A sense we've been in the presence of God.

Momentary transcendence.

Precious.

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2

What do you face this day, my friend? What burden do you bear alone? Might God want to help you carry it by sharing it with a trusted person? What realness, what release, what beauty might you experience by having the courage to do so?



Photo Credit: wtl photography

7 Quick Takes (Volume 213)

1) It's been a busy week, getting everything done for our church's musical. We opened last night to phenomenal, spectacular, glowing, decent reviews. It's not too late to catch a performance. Come see us!


2) A local television station ran a piece about the musical on Wednesday and Thursday. Check it out.


3) Sensing my declining mood after a long morning, my husband appealed to my delicate side.

Kevin: What would you like for lunch, my love?

Princess Dawdle: Aw! That's so sweet. You called her "my love."

Kevin: What else should I call her?

Princess Dawdle: I don't know. You could just call her woman.

Apparently she's spent too much time around middle school boys.

4) It's easy for me to get depressed this time of year. We are SO BUSY getting everything done for the musical and going to dress rehearsals every night on top of our normal responsibilities. There's no time for Christmas shopping or decorating. Seems like everybody else has their Christmas tree up, some even have all their gifts bought and I'm happy if the dishes got in the dishwasher.

And then after months of hard work, actors get sick, threatening their ability to perform to their best. Technical difficulties frustrate. We're scrambling to get the set done. Bizarre accidents happen--this year Kevin fell into the orchestra pit! (Thank the good Lord he landed like a cat in the only open area and wasn't hurt.) Sleep is hard to come by as you wake thinking of another little detail.

There are days I wonder if it's worth it.

But then the show opens and we see little miracles every night. God's Spirit swoops in and I am mesmerized at how He works. And we, a bunch of ordinary people, are smack dab in the middle of it! It's such a privilege to be involved and associated with these faithful people. God reminds me the best work takes time, involving sacrifice and perseverance. If He's willing to do it, shouldn't I give it my all? Why wouldn't I want to be a part of it?

5) Every December, our high school show choirs and jazz band do a little elementary tour, visiting all the elementary schools in town. Ladies Man got to go along for the first time this year. One of his jobs? To be the tree in "a partridge in a pear tree," holding up his friend the partridge.


He thought this would be great fun until he had to do it half a dozen times for 12 stanzas of the song! This guy is SORE.

Oh, the price of art.

6) We were just sick when we found out the Cornhusker Marching Band Highlights Concert is tonight, on one our musical's performances. Usually it's the week following the musical and our whole family loves going. Attending has become a tradition of sorts. This will be Drummer Boy's final concert with the marching band and Drama Queen's first. It was TOUGH deciding how to handle it. We didn't want to miss either thing! With Kevin directing, Princess Dawdle in the chorus and me and Ladies Man playing in the pit at church, we had a huge dilemma.

We decided to split it up. Kevin and Princess Dawdle will do their thing at the musical while Ladies Man and I duck out of the orchestra to attend the concert. (Big thanks to Greg for subbing for me!) It'll work, I guess, but Kevin will be wishing he could be in Lincoln and I'll be wondering what's happening on stage in Beatrice. Sigh.

7) After watching the efforts of nearly 50 people at our opening night I must end this post by saying God is good. I am captured at the way He works, mysteriously, often in ways we don't understand or even like, yet He works. And when our eyes are open to His hand, when we let Him do what He wants, we will be amazed with a glimpse of His beauty. I don't understand it. I can't explain it. But I know it. And am in awe.

I pray you see His beauty this weekend too, friends, in whatever comes your way. Catch more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.