roller coaster life

in the past day or so, several crazy things have happened:

GOOD:
**reconnected with a couple friends i haven't talked to in several years. one of which i hadn't heard a single thing about in all that time. oh, i love chatting with ppl on FB and catching up! it was just like we had missed a couple weeks. another, i had some questions i have been wanting to ask, but was scared. took the leap, it was a good convo.

**saw a friend act a lead role in Big River at nashville's TPAC. this is the biggest production he's done and he was absolutely wonderful! the whole show was, but i was particularly proud of our friend. this is a guy who is 6 degrees from everyone in the world and very outgoing, so it's hard to get some of his time. but we got to go out with him and his wife afterwards and chat for a couple hours. sooo much fun!

**alena had a great time with nana and papa (jared's parents) last night. the show went until 9:30, so we thought we'd just have her stay all night. she got to see the rest of the fam too...uncle justin, aunt kendy and uncle bill and her cousins, abby and john.

**we're on a 2 week spring break, lots of mommy and alena time, lots of beautiful weather and playing outside, next weekend going to st. louis with some friends.

**tomorrow is the neighborhood clean up day, followed by a housewarming party for some friends. sunday, our neighbors, who have this amazing wisteria that grows all over their deck, is having their 2nd annual wisteria party. last year was just an impromptu get-together. it's super fun, getting to know neighbors, dodging the bumblebees and being under a thick canopy of the intoxicating smell of wisteria!

BAD:
**my cousin planned to move to england to follow her boyfriend, who is english. she's taken time to get everything ready, so she thought. got there, got stuck in customs and they told her they wouldn't let her in until she had a passport AND a visa AND 6 months worth of money to live on. so she's back in the US getting it all together again...

** my nephew, who is 19, had a skateboarding accident... scraped off A LOT of skin, busted his head, broke his collar bone in half and a few small bones in his wrist. the ER pics are awful...but he's home and joking about it and in good spirits.

** my 22 yr old niece (the above mentioned nephew's sister) is pregnant and super low in amniotic fluids. she's about 1/2 way through the pregnancy. praying for her and her husband.

**jared's 2nd cousin, who is probably in his mid 30s(?), lives in a tiny little town (like, under 4,000 ppl) in TN called hohenwald. it's the hometown of everyone on jared's mom's side of the fam. anyway, a couple weeks ago he interrupted a burglary in his house. the kids ran off into the woods behind his house, but he screamed at them "i have a gun!" so they fired a shot, and he fired a shot, but they were far apart from each other. his wife and 3 kids started staying at her mom's house out of fear. last night, he came home late, opened the door, was hit in the head and shot in the stomach, damaging his lung, liver and kidney. they're thankful it didn't hit the heart or spine. hohenwald is about an hour and 1/2 from nashville. there's not really a good regional hospital and the weather was too bad that night for life flight. he had to go by ambulance. he's still in very serious condition, but i don't *think* that his life is in danger. he's in and out of a coma, so they haven't gotten the full story. his wife has MS and they think the robbers were after her Rx drugs. we learned that he was baptized on easter sunday and his wife said she's already seen a complete change in his personality. God's timing, huh?

lots of stuff to pray about. lots of stuff to be thankful for. in the words of huck finn in last night's play... "there will be considerable suffering...there will be considerable joy." that's probably more of a paraphrase than a quote, but it is definitely the summary of life.