The first pic above keeps with my personal DPP challenge this year, and the second represents the work of a husband to love his wife well.
A countdown has taken place on our little kitchen chalkboard. In the seven days leading up to my birthday Jeremy has celebrated in that small space, reminding me each day that I was on his mind. We’ve come a long way, this man and me, and he has done a stellar job being the Chief Celebrator this week. If you know anything about enneagram, then you can guess that I’m the tradition-and-celebration person around here as an enneagram 2. It’s totally in my wheelhouse to try to make someone feel special. Jeremy’s wheelhouse is more in the genius department—not in the IQ sense, though that may be true too, but in the detail sense. I’m watching my Favorite Web Developer (and enneagram 5) make sure that I have the gifts that I’d really like, the food that I’d really like, the drinks that I’d really like, the proper cheer that I’d really like, and he’s even motivated our child to join him in a decent understanding of birthday customs—and it has cost him. It’s not his scene but he does it because it brings me joy.
I love him.
Twenty-four years ago I spent my birthday with a guy I had just started dating. I couldn’t even recognize how smitten I was until he laid his feelings out on the table, and then I fell in love hard. Right now he’s picking up takeout for my birthday supper. I’m so grateful for this long vision of marriage, the one where we are bound together in Christ. We couldn’t have made it to this point without a whole lot of grace from the Lord, and He has been faithful to us. Each year we become more and more aware of his goodness.
PS. In the background you can see a new suitcase. It’s a fantastic gift that should have the word “hope” written across it in bold letters, for it broadcasts hope to me with its very existence. I’m here, homebound, at the end of 2020, but soon I’ll travel again with this guy!
My birthday request: a slice of apricot torte from The Green Gateau. (I believe the restaurant orders it from a Lithuanian bakery in Omaha.) This dessert makes me happy. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the really wonderful birthday celebration! It felt especially sweet in the middle of Covid.
One of my absolute favorite classes in college was Art History. I still laugh about it some 20 years later because the professor asked us—on exams—to identify the artist and title of works based off little teeny black and white photocopies of the images. Oh my goodness, it was insane. And yet I learned so much that semester and I adored it.
I hesitate to even mention this great artist’s name as I think about the shots I’ve taken over the course of today, but here goes nothing: Caravaggio. I loved his work right away. Chiascurro drew me instantly to Caravaggio. How could I not love the play of light and shadow?
Today I found myself saying, if I want to take dramatically lit photos EVERY SINGLE DAY this month, I can! I feel this need to diversify for some reason, but I’m casting that boundary aside and I’m going to shoot whatever I want. I will say this, if you want to mess with light the way you mess with playdoh—keep shooting. Keep experimenting. Keep playing. Move your body, move your angles, see what comes through your lens. Happy December, friends.
After hanging three paper chains and nine new snowflakes I knew I would capture a piece of this activity for today’s image. There’s something lovely and slow about taping little fragments of paper together. There’s something creative and calming in using scissors and paper to make unique snowflakes for our windows. In this world where I am use to rushing—and yes, I’ve been forced into slowing down in 2020—I’m starting to see the peace in sitting still. The word “present” has been coming to mind since March. God is letting me mull on that word. What does it look like when a planner and doer focuses on being present?
Today is my cousin’s funeral. I feel like the absorption of her death is very slow for me and I’m wondering how long it will take before every pore in my body has digested the information. Surely a memorial service is a piece to that puzzle. All of my missing and wondering and confusion is connected to the wrongness of death. It’s okay to hate death. I don’t feel the need to wrap up this post with a bow for anyone, however I do want to say that Paula knew Jesus intimately. She loved him. He loved her and made her and called her to himself. Because of this our goodbye is truly a “see you later.”
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).
Paula and I talked about our very human struggles when we’d message each other. Neither of us expected a life of ease and yet we both really wrestled with the hardships of this world. We commiserated. We prayed because we knew that the Bread of Life and the Light of Love cared about every detail of our lives. Sometimes our faith was very small indeed, and other times it was great. Now Paula is with her Savior, and someday she and I will both be perfectly restored and will live with him, feasting and banqueting with Christ himself. Amen.
I don’t have a political dog in the fight right now. The election from November sapped me of any energy I have left for such nonsense. I care but I just don’t care as intensely as I did prior to Biden unseating Trump as the leader of our nation.
I say that I don’t have a dog in the fight because the fight is ongoing in my city and try as I might to understand the perspective of the “other” side, I cannot.
Daily, I put my head down and do a whole lot of garbage that a whole lot of people don’t have to do. I normally do not complain about it and I also don’t give much thought to the fact that I’m kind of a weirdo in all I have to do to keep my body working smoothly.
So forgive me for a moment while I complain loudly.
Today I’m just all out of grace for those with normal, functioning bodies. (Don’t worry, the grace will come back after I rid myself of the venom.) At the start of Covid I figured that everyone had someone in their lives to be careful about and for… Your grandma is elderly so you’re careful for her. Your aunt had breast cancer last year so you’re careful for her. Your brother has type 2 diabetes so you’re careful for him. Your child has asthma so you’re careful for him.
And then I, gratefully by the way, lived through months of this swirly, confusing, unknown time of Covid-19 sweeping the entire globe and I began to notice that—wait a sec—not everyone is being careful. I have tried to understand the reasons why, but I have yet to really figure it out. Am I asking for a statewide mask mandate? Nope. I think it would be smart, but then again, no dog, remember? Do I think we should lockdown everything and ignore the pain of small businesses? Nope. Absolutely not. Maybe shutting down is the right way to go, but as for me, I’m doing everything in my power to support local business owners. We tip well. We thank them. We patronize their businesses, masked and distanced, happily giving our money to places that might be struggling. We share their names broadly on social media.
No, what I’m annoyed with is how very easy it is for the physically blessed among us to say, “just stay home if you’re not healthy.” I’m over it.
Just. over. it.
I’m beyond exhausted dealing with the body the good Lord has given me—which functions and dysfunctions in a variety of ways—and then I have this? My neighbors and friends saying that they are fine and they will continue to enjoy their liberties, thankyouverymuch? It’s a giant “screw you” from those who are already doing well and can’t be bothered with the hurting, tired, weak, chronically beleaguered among them.
The truth is that the healthy and young among us can get sick and it’s no thang. Odds are in their favor. Despite the growing death count of Americans, I still gather this feeling of “it hasn’t affected me, so I don’t give a damn.”
I’m over it.
What is your life if you really don’t care about others? What are you living for? If your personal liberty is the most important thing in your life I believe you need to take stock of your blessings. If you feel like your thoughts are the wisest and your family is the best, if you can still run and play and all your organs are functioning perfectly, if you have no reason to fear Covid-19, then bully for you.
Your grandma might feel differently about things.
Your neighbor might feel differently about things.
I feel differently about this thing.
I have stupid type 1 diabetes and stupid rheumatoid arthritis and a ridiculously extroverted personality and a little bit of a fighting spirit and a lot of seasonal affective disorder and while I am mentally ready to get past this pandemic already, I have to pay attention.
I cannot hang out with you.
I will not eat in a restaurant.
I will not go to church where people are singing—even masked.
I did not see loved ones for Thanksgiving and will miss them on my birthday.
So whatever you think about politics and viruses and conspiracy theories and small businesses, know that people like me are listening to everything you say and we are tired.
Have an opinion, sure. But also have some compassion.
Edited on 12/7 to add that while I am still worshipping with the saints in my basement each week, singing mightily from home, I am grateful that others can gather together. This is what I feel I need to do to stay healthy. I have no desire to make decisions for everyone else! I want restaurants to thrive. I want people to worship. I want life to go on as best as it possibly can and I recognize that each family has to make their own calls. Besides masking and distancing to keep others healthy, I think there’s a lot of gray room for decision-making. Again, I’m not in a position to decide what’s best for everyone. I’m happily not in charge of such things.
Without a doubt, this delivery was the best and most beautiful part of my day. My love sent me birthday flowers to enjoy in the days before my actual birthday—and it made me light up from head to toe.
I most frequently take pictures of flowers and fruit on my dining room table, which is truly the heart of our home. It’s what you see from the front door and it receives wonderful light from the south and the west. It’s just a fact that I’m highly visual and really value beauty. I like vibrant colors and simple arrangements. I appreciate a balanced and full vase of flowers like no one’s business, and if the light tracks through the leaves? Well, I’m sold. My files are filled with flowers kissed with light.
So then, maybe it’s not that weird that I recently gave my husband some very detailed information on what kind of flowers I’d like to receive for the next year. We’ve been married 22 years and he’s really good at loving me in a way that I feel most loved: beautiful gifts. And when I opened the door to the delivery man this morning (two notes on that below), I realized Jeremy had been listening to every single word I said. His attention to specifics was spot on. It made my smile even bigger.
Two notes on the delivery man: 1) I think he might have the best job ever. He must make people so happy! 2) Liv and I definitely had a homeschool-in-robes-in-bed kind of morning. Our noses were stuffy and we were tired and wanted to stay cozy. All I have to say is that when the florist’s van pulled up out front I pulled the most Superman of wardrobe changes and with no time to spare presented myself appropriately dressed enough to answer the door. We Tredways aren’t really morning people as a whole…
“You can make anything you want in the kitchen. But you have to clean it up, too.”
This was my teacher prompt for Culinary Arts today.
And she was off. Handmade bowtie pasta won the day. Pasta-making is not for the faint of heart—it’s truly a process! But this is what happens when you have the ability to let a kid choose what their heart desires. The heart wanted pasta. It’s wanted pasta since The Heart first started eating pasta. And I have to give it to her, fresh pasta is delicious.
Sometimes I love this human more than I can even express. She’s cool. She’s committed. She’s motivated from a deep internal well that I cannot see, but I get to see the fruits of her creative stirrings and I’m so grateful God allowed me to learn all about life through my Liv.
I’m eager to see and reflect on more beautiful things through this year’s December Photo Project. Thanks again for joining me, friends!
Last year I could barely muster the desire to do the DPP. I was definitely riding on the energy of all of the awesome Project participants who were eager to get started. This year is different. While my margins for a new project feel insanely minimal, my enthusiasm for a Facebook full of Christmas-y pictures is very high indeed. I. am. ready. I’m ready for Christmas cookies. I’m ready for lights. I’m ready for Jesus—O come, o come, Emmanuel!
This year has been one of the darkest of my entire life and I imagine it’s the same for most of you. Very few of us have considered a pandemic before 2020. We’ve never been so concerned about germs in our lives. I now own masks for almost every season and I’m more concerned about toilet paper than ever before, despite having plenty to take care of my family’s needs. I’m forcing Vitamin D and Vitamin C on my kid at every turn and, oh yeah, forgetting to throw a little Zinc in there, too. I’m missing potluck meals at church like you wouldn’t believe, and I will never ever ever get used to not being able to hug the people I love when I see them in public. We don’t even do fake arm hugs in the air anymore; 2020 has pounded that out of us.
But all is not lost. No, many of us are seeing the light creep in through the cracks in our lives. Joy finds its way in. And in the darkness it might be true that joy is more obvious than ever as well. There is sweetness in a family walk around the block. A back patio fire pit can still bring loved ones together. A waffle outside a restaurant’s doors can taste especially delicious, and supporting local businesses feels like a treat rather than a chore. Saying hello to more neighbors, greeting each other’s dogs. Hanging Christmas lights early to light up the dark nights. Snuggling close to your love for a basement date with cheese and crackers and Netflix isn’t the same as a night on the town but it is GOOD.
My cousin passed away yesterday. She would’ve turned 33 this month, and typing about her in the past tense feels utterly surreal.
Paula was born when I was ten years old. I must have been hoping she’d be born on my early December birthday, but she chose to make her arrival in November. She was the first child born to my Uncle Tim and Aunt Jan, both of whom I loved very much, and I was profoundly excited. Though I had loved on dollies my whole life, I never slept with a stuffed animal until someone gave me a small teddy bear for my 10th birthday. I named her Paula. That Paula resides in my closet. My cousin Paula now rests, her spirit is at home with her Lord and Creator.
Paula was vivacious and thoughtful in turns. She had a sense of humor that cracked me up. It was whip smart and hilarious and could touch on any cultural reference. I didn’t always understand the actual punchline, but if Paula was throwing down the joke it was for sure snarky and funny.
Paula had such an openness to her that children loved her. My daughter Livia especially loved being around Paula because she was so much FUN. I want to text Paula right now, demand that she still lives, that a cruel joke was played yesterday, and then laugh about the dumb moments we shared together. Paula witnessed our dog Shiloh snarfing down a snack from the coffee table only to literally spit it out when my husband Jeremy (his Alpha) came down the stairs. A dog spitting out a goodie? I’ve never seen it happen before and never will again, but it happened when Paula was staying with us for a holiday and it made her and me laugh over and over again.
Paula introduced me to new music. She was open with me about her struggles and her love for her Savior and desire for a closer walk with Him. Once she knew that chili and cinnamon rolls were a THING here in the Midwest she never got over it, insisting that it was a super nasty combination. She was wrong, but that’s okay. ;)
Paula carried the intelligence of her dad and the compassion of her mom throughout her 32 years. She loved her family. She loved her pets. She loved her friends and particularly cherished her years playing ultimate frisbee. She loved her church, and she especially loved children.
Paula, I have loved you since the moment I knew you were a wee person in your mother’s womb and I shall love you into eternity. How grateful I am that I will see you in heaven, in perfect wholeness and at perfect peace. But for now, I miss you like nothing else. You are irreplaceable and one-of-a-kind. No one can take your place in my heart.
The clock silently slipped past midnight and revealed a new date on my phone as I caught up on social media before falling asleep. November 14, it read, and I felt the time shift from 25 years as a type 1 diabetic to 26. Twenty-six. Twenty-six years ago I was the same age that my daughter is now. Sixteen. Junior year at Southeast High School. I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing: singing, acting, joining clubs, spending time with friends, taking challenging courses, and plotting an accolades list that would get me into the college of my choosing. At the time I felt like type 1 diabetes destroyed my world. And to be fair, it did for awhile. I traded a week of school just prior to Thanksgiving break for a week at the hospital, learning about syringes and counting carbs and low blood sugar reactions and the way high blood sugars would cause dramatic complications. I cried a lot. I mean, a lot a lot. Diabetes was not on my to-do list. Back in school I felt like a teetering toddler, getting my bearings and figuring out how to live a new life in a body that didn’t really look any different. I could fit in there. But at the many doctor’s appointments and trainings at Children’s Hospital in Omaha, I was a drippy, angry, sad mess of a teenager that had just been given a giant curveball in life.
Over the past 26 years diabetics and non-diabetics alike have asked the question, “What’s good about diabetes?” That question made me rage. NOTHING, I said for many years. And still, I feel that deep in my soul. Diabetes is a mess-up. It’s a stain, a mistake, a tragic fall within the human body where my very own autoimmune system has betrayed me. In that sense, there is nothing good about the whole shebang.
But here I am, 42 years old. A productive member of the community I live in. A wife. A mom. A woman who has loved other people’s children and who strives to love others well. And you know what I see so clearly today? Type 1 diabetes has made me who I am.
Okay, so let’s not get dramatic about this. I believe God is sovereign over all things and that he knew T1 would be part of my story. Joni Eareckson Tada in her autobiography Joni refers to our lives as masterpiece paintings on a stretched out canvas, only we can see just a little bit of that canvas at a time. My story is a beautiful one. It is a particular one. And so so so very much of who I am today began with a diagnosis of diabetes on Monday, November 14, 1994. Other than my childhood moves across the country for my dad’s work in hospitals, diabetes was THE thing that began shifting me from someone who expected the world to go her way to someone who empathized deeply with others in pain.
Diabetes changed me.
For so long I was dead set on putting diabetes last on my to-do list. I ran the race of life and pursued my goals. I married my love at a young age and finished college while he worked through grad school. I proudly earned a teaching degree. I continued a life in ministry, in both paid and unpaid positions, and learned about the way the church is uniquely equipped to serve the body and soul as it follows Christ’s leadership. Meanwhile I was inconvenienced almost constantly by diabetes. I didn’t always have money to deal with the unscheduled ways diabetes wreaks havoc on a life. By forgetting to fill prescriptions early I learned that kind pharmacists can be the most blessed people to walk the face of this earth. I learned that normal people activities like walking the hot pavement of an amusement park in the middle of the summer revealed my abnormal need to consume sugar to avoid passing out. I had to eat when I didn’t want to and skip eating when I was super hungry. All par for the course for a diabetic. I had to drop almost $100 on a vial of insulin as a very poor 23 year old after my prescribed bottle got too hot in the cab of our moving van. I missed a ski trip with my youth group girls in order to visit an ER after puking all night, and I very memorably got diagnosed with diabetes ketoacidosis (DKA) after years of putting diabetes in a low position of importance. DKA will kill a person, and that was the closest I’ve come to death in this race so far. It scared the tar out of my young daughter, and though it wasn’t a turning point in my self care, it was the beginning of the curve towards giving diabetes the attention it needed.
As much as I long to ignore diabetes, I cannot. And now T1 is receiving the attention it deserves from me. Others might do woodworking, or be the DM for Dungeons & Dragons. Some might join knitting clubs and others might run marathons. I do diabetes. And I do a host of other things. You would not believe the strength of the T1 diabetes community! These people are warriors and can do any of the activities I mentioned above. But for all of us, diabetes requires a gigantic portion of our brains. The good news is that I am trying to take great care of myself these days and I treat T1 like a hobby. I’ve learned to stop and eat when my body needs to be fed. For years I stopped and fed my babies first, always sticking to their timetables and doing what their little bodies needed, as moms do. But now it’s me time. I change out my infusion sets every few days. I recharge and tape the CGM on my arm every 7 days. I pause to check my glucose at home, in bed, in the aisles of Target, before I drive. And I put juice boxes and fruit snacks on my Walmart shopping list and then gently remind my kid not to drink the last of the apple juices just in case I need them. She’s polished off the Sprites and Diet Sprites for my sick day regimens, so those will go back on the grocery list next week!
I take care of myself. And by doing this, I’ve learned that all of us human beings are limited creatures. If I had to pick one word for the year I would pick LIMITED.
Last year my friend Emily and I led a bible study group through Jen Wilkin’s None Like Him and In His Image. One of the biggest take-homes I got from those books is that God is so very other. He is not like us, no… we are like him, in teeny tiny shining ways. I struggle with my limited nature all the time. It’s a way that I want to be God (instead of being content to just try to be like him). I want to be good at ALL THE THINGS. I want to learn ALL THE THINGS. I admire someone and want to be that part of them I admire. I don’t like having limits and boundaries and things that get in my way. I. am. limited.
Diabetes is one of the things that limits me.
But guess what? If I think about it for more than two seconds I know that you have limits too. We all do. We are all born into limited bodies. We all have limited amounts of time to enjoy each day. We have limited skillsets and limited gifts and when it comes to you I embrace that! I love what YOU bring to the table, but I struggle with being content with my own limitations.
All that being said, I’m coming into my own in my early 40’s. I’m glad I have eyes to see how my limits sometimes chafe me, because in seeing this dilemma, I know it won’t rule over me forever. I’m beginning to value and appreciate my boundaries as a human in the way I value and appreciate others. Case in point: being grateful for diabetes. (Yes, even typing that sentence made me throw up in my mouth a little.) I’m not exactly grateful for the brokenness of it, but I’m grateful for how it has shaped me. I love others better because of type 1 diabetes. I can empathize with others’ plights because of diabetes. I can mourn in your hospital room over the baby who never opened his eyes, I can cry on the phone over your diagnosis, I can pray for you in a different way and tend to your lows and highs because I, too, have been there.
The T1 diabetes diagnosis when I was 16 didn’t reroute my life, it set me on course to be who I was meant to be. And for that I am thankful.
