This one's for Tessa

I've always loved Andrew Wyeth's Master Bedroom painting. It reminds me of our own Winnie, who takes up her watchful post on our bed every morning as I get ready for work.

Apparently she loves anything upholstered! I can't blame her. She's getting pretty old in doggie years.

See what you're missing Tessa? Tell me college is more exciting than this!!! No don't. I really don't want to know exactly how exciting college is.

Generation Jones...huh?

Hello 4:00 a.m., we meet again. It's Saturday morning and there's no good reason to be up, but tell that to my restless legs. But hey! I learned something this morning. I apparently have been living under a rock because I've never heard the term Generation Jones.

I'm a frequent reader of Jen-X's blog. She identifies strongly with the Generation X crowd - those born after the Baby Boomer crowd. Born in 1961 (happy birthday to me this month) I've never really identified with the Baby Boomers or the Gen X-ers.

Yes, I was alive when Kennedy was assassinated. But I was two, people! MLK and Bobby Kennedy? I was not quite seven. The Vietnam war was background noise to my Midwestern childhood, my father just barley too old to be drafted and my brother not born until the war was waning. Race riots briefly touched Kansas City. I remember being at the mall with my mother when someone interrupted the muzak to say the mall would be closing early due to said riots. My friend Susan's Dad rushed to the University of Kansas in 1968 to retrieve a college-aged child after the Student Union was burned down and the National Guard deployed. Nixon and Watergate occupied the headlines while I concentrated on sleepovers with friends.

So I'm not really a Baby Boomer. And I'm not a Gen X-er. Generation X claims Michael Jackson as an icon. Born in 1958, Michael Jackson didn't become quite the international pop icon until I was too busy raising babies to be impressed. Personal computers, video games, the Iran hostage crisis, the end of the cold war and the fall of the Berlin Wall...all I experienced as a young adult.

But, tah dah, I just found out there's a name for us folks. Generation Jones, the generation born between roughly 1954 and 1965. Who knew. Well apparently I didn't. Key characteristics?Less optimistic, distrustful of government, and generally cynical. Mmmhmm. Now we're talking.

George Clooney, Nadia Comaneci, Lady Diana, Michael J Fox, Heather Locklear, Julia Luis-Dreyfus, Jeff Probst, Meg Ryan, and of course Barack Obama - all born in 1961. So I'm in good company. Or at least interesting company! OK, yes, Andrew Fastow (think Enron) was also born in 1961, but hey, every generation has its crooks.

So at least I have a place, sort of. I don't really think "Generation Jones" is a very cool moniker. But maybe we're just not that cool as a group. Sandwiched between the hippies and the yuppies, between free love and AIDS, we are too busy trying to keep it all together.

Maybe we should be called the Polyester Generation. Like the preferred fabric of my teen years, we are low maintenance and versatile. Now if I could only claim to be wrinkle free.

The end and the beginning - it's an endless loop

I'm awake and it's four in the morning. Another storm has rolled in and another bout of restless leg syndrome along with it. Not that the two are related. My legs are just protesting that they have been at rest too long and it's time to get up and move. They pretty much control my life.

Today we are scheduled to close on the Bethany house. It's not over 'till the fat lady sings, they say. Hopefully I'll be singing at 11:30 this morning!!! Then we will be down to one household. Hallelujah!!! Amen.

Mark and I are nostalgic about the Bethany house, which I suppose is perfectly normal, even though I often caught myself cursing it. Every time I started to complain in my head about that old house, I would stop and say a prayer of thanksgiving. It was a blessing, provided at a time when we needed shelter and a place to call our own. A place where our family could heal.

The list of important life events that happened during our tenure in that house is long. I won't bore you with the details. The memories are pouring into my heart and head. Beautiful girls ready for proms and formals, volleyball games well played, new found love, romance, engagement and a wedding. Attempts to make a comfortable home with furniture bought at thrift stores or handed down by generous relatives. Endless home renovations with some awesome new skills learned. And a whole collection of power tools. I love power tools.

Today marks another milestone in our life, another testament to God's goodness. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I find myself only remembering the good. There has been plenty of bad. Plenty of pain, just like anyone or group of someones who attempt to live life to the fullest would experience. But I'm choosing more often than not to remember the fun, the good, the blessed and forget the rest. Or at least learn the lessons and move on.

This is me, doing a happy dance, on my way back to bed. Maybe I can snatch another hour of sleep before the alarm goes off and the new day and era begins.