Thinking About our Daughter’s Future

About two and a half years ago, a couple months after Susan and I married, we met with a friend who had recently got into insurance sales with New York Life. We had death insurance on me through my company, Reynolds Web Solutions, but we didn’t have any insurance on Susan, so we decided on a term life option for her, similar to what I had.

Our friend has since gone on to bigger and better things, so our policy went into the hands of another insurance representative.

She came over a couple months ago to meet us and see if we wanted to switch to whole life insurance. We thought about it. Contrary to what some will say, it is not a bad way to go. It is somewhat of a forced savings plan if no savings are going into the bank, but since we plan on saving ourselves, hopefully making more in interest and through our investments, we decided to forgo the whole life option for now. We will keep our term life policies for now. That is not a bad plan either.

Now to our daughter. We are planning for her future, so we have to get a small policy for her. When she gets to be an adult, we can then transfer that over to her if she wants to continue the policy. And if, God forbid, something happens to Susannah, we will have the money for burial expenses. It is never fun to think about it, but life happens.

We know all things are in God’s hands, and we trust Him completely, but through scripture, it is clear that we should prepare for a rainy day. We just pray that the rain comes only in the form of mist rather than in torrents.

Men and Women and Their Furniture

Most Men and woman look at furniture differently. For the man, as long as it is comfortable, we would like to keep the furniture forever. If a couch or a recliner is comfortable, so what if you have to make sure to sit somewhere other than where the spring pops out. So what if the fabric has been scratched away by a long-gone cat from a family who owned it before he got it from the Salvation Army store. If it comfortable, it’s good.

Women like furniture to be comfortable, yes, but not too comfortable. It has to look good within the scheme of the house. A couch has be aesthetically pleasing or it is not setting foot in the house.

Okay, I may be simplifying the scenario a bit, but in general terms, this is true. Paul and Sarah got married a few years back, and not before he had to decide between his future wife and his seven couches he shared with his other guy roommates. Seven couches! They must’ve been very comfy.

When buying home furniture as a couple, compromises must take place or they are going to be eating tv dinners sitting on the floor for a long time.

Janie and Jerry are Awesome!

As many of you know by now, our daughter Susannah was born last month. Her one-month anniversary was Friday in fact. And our friends and family have poured upon us such generosity; we can’t help but be so thankful.

Janie and Jerry, my sister and brother-in-law in Minnesota, sent Susan and I a package of wonderful gifts including a carved and painted block for Susannah with a special scripture verse on the bottom that had been near and dear to our mom’s heart. The scripture verse is Psalm 103:1-2: “Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”
Well, if you know me, you know that I can’t hold back my tears very well, and so the tears flowed. I was so touched at not only the gifts but the love that Janie and Jerry poured out through the letter along with the gifts.

Here is their letter:

“Dear Ted and Susan,

Congratulations! I wanted to send you something really special on this incredible occasion, so I had this block made for Susannah to be able to look at when she gets older and for you to cherish in years to come. I put a Bible verse on the bottom of the block, Psalm 103:1-2, for a special reason. Ted, since our Mom can’t be here on earth to rejoice with you, in her honor, I included one of her favorite Bible passages. Sort of as a way of reminding you of how much she loved and loves you and your family.
Our mom died just six weeks before my first baby was born. I remember the pain of not having her there. But God never left us! And he has never left you. Look at the great things He has done! He is good.
We look forward to the day when we get to meet Susannah in person.
Love,
Jerry and Janie”
Our birth mother died of breast cancer in March of 1979. I was only eleven years old and I was still not quite aware of all that was going on around me, including Janie’s own pain. All of my brothers and sisters and dad and the whole city of Cadillac were in pain at the loss of such a wonderful woman of God.

So I wanted to lift up the two of them, Janie and Jerry, before the Lord and honor them. They are two of my very favorite people! I put together a triptych of three pictures of Susannah surrounded by the gifts and the letter they sent us.

The Yellow Room

Susannah’s room is painted a wonderful shade of sunshine yellow with murals covering three walls. Hold on, I am trying to find the pictures I took of the room.

Well, I will have to find them at home. Don’t you hate it when you think you have your photos organized to a point where you think you can find anything?

I think I have them somewhere else on another portable hard drive.

{edit, hours later}I found them!

Anyway, this room is going to be Susannah’s room if we stay in our house while she grows up. We may very well stay here. We love it in Portsmouth. The neighborhood we bought our house in has great character. Our neighbors are like the neighbors of old. We talk to each other. The neighbors across the street from us just had a little boy and so they are very kind in offering any kind of kids bedding or a swing or a bassinet. We have used that bassinet a whole lot. Susannah sleeps in our room for now, but we will soon get her used to her own bed and her own room. The yellow room. She will love it!

Susannah’s Room

I think I already talked about this one time, but when Susan and I bought our house in 2005, we were going to immediately paint the interior of the house except for the baby room. The baby room was already nearly perfect. It is a sunshine yellow with two murals on the walls. They are fun. We were picking paint colors even before we got into the house. As it turned out, we actually started to like all the colors of the interior walls. The country blues appealed to us, so we kept it like it was.

Living in the Tidewater Region

Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water and the region of land areas which surround it in southeastern Virginia in the USA. Hampton Roads is notable for its huge ice-free harbor, for U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force facilities, shipbuilding and repair yards, coal piers, and hundreds of miles of waterfront property and beaches, all of which contribute to the diversity and stability of the region’s economy. The Virginia Peninsula and South Hampton Roads are sometimes considered Tidewater, VA.

I have been living here since 2000. Susan has been here since 1997. She loves the water, but I am just now learning to enjoy what the area has to offer in terms water activities. Fishing, kayaking, harbor cruises, more than one yacht charter, swimming, and a whole lot more.

My goal is to experience the water side of life more and more now that our daughter is on her way. She deserves to experience the beauty of this area.

Home Improvements

Should we build on to our house? Well, I am sure that will come. I really enjoy our neighborhood and I know that Susannah will have fun here. And the houses are going up in value, so the feasibility of us building on to our house. We could either bump it up or bump it out. Our house was built as a small 750 square foot bungalow in the 1940s and a utility room was added onto the back, but no ladder rack ,a third bedroom was added to the side, and central air and heat was added as well. I would like to add a second story to the house, but I am not opposed to moving out, but that would take more space away from our yard.

Getting Closer…

I have been traveling these last couple of days from Norfolk, VA to Tallahassee, FL and Susan is at home gathering steam toward the birth of our daughter. I am actually stuck in the Hartsfield Atlanta airport because of weather. The pilots piloting our plane have been stuck in Washington DC. I think they are almost here, finally, and now they have to hop off and hop back on again for cialis us again.