One of the things I want to do before I die is go back to Sweden for a nice long visit. Friends, this is the loveliest country EVER! I went with my Bible College friends Stephanie and Pernilla. We stayed with Pernilla’s family and friends all over Sweden for two of the most beautiful weeks of my life. I was so happy when my four babies all turned out to look like little Swedish beauties. (No Swedish blood mind you, German I think, but they still look like characters in a Carl Larsson painting!)

A charming Swedish tradition is the celebration of St. Lucia Day on December 13th. Last year I wanted to mention it on my blog but it coincided with finals week. And, yeah, that happened again, but – luckily – Pernilla wrote a short explanation of the day for me and I’m going to copy it here. I refuse to let finals week wreck ALL my holiday fun! Blog connection: Well, you’ll get it after you read the explanation, but Lucia is definitely a Rare Rock!

There once was a girl named Lucia. She lived in the city of Surakuse on Sicily in Italy. She believed in Jesus Christ and in God but the Roman emperor had forbidden all the Romans to believe in God. They were ordered to believe in the Roman gods such as Jupiter and Mars. Lucia prayed to God everyday but the only ones who knew this were her mother and her fiancé.

One day Lucia’s mother gave her a great sum of money to use as she got married. Lucia thought she didn’t need the money and gave all of the money to the poor people of Surakuse instead. This made her finacé very angry and he told her to take the money back. When Lucia refused, the finacé reported her to the emperor as being a Christian.

The Roman soldiers came to take Lucia away but at first they were not able to get to her, there was an invisible wall all around her. Then they tried to burn her at the stake but the fire wouldn’t hurt her. Finally she was beheaded and died because of her faith.

This happened on December 13th in the year 304 and she was later proclaimed a saint.

The tradition now in Sweden is a mixture of an older tradition where people would walk around as beggars on December 13th and a German tradition where a girl was dressed up as Jesus on December 13th with a white dress and a halo of lights on her head. She would give gifts to the children.

My kids admiring my friend Heather’s new twins.

Heather was my go-to babysitter for years. One time she took care of 9 month-old Ada for several days when Claire was hospitalized with pneumonia. She’s a peach, I tell you, and these boys are plenty of work but lots more blessing!

I just thought you all might need a dose of cuteness this week!

1. Losing Teeth! Claire has lost another one since this picture, and I’ve been reminded how exciting it is to change and grow-up. Claire cannot walk into a room without flashing this somewhat painful looking smile just to see if anyone will notice. Don’t we all feel that way sometimes! If only we noticed each other more.

2. Hungry Girl daily tips and products! I’ve recently discovered this little gem of recipes and good-for-you ideas. I’m convicted more than ever that I need to get a little more serious about this healthy living idea and this is one place to start. Plus, she’s funny and somehow related to Spencer from iCarly. (Follow her on Twitter, too!)

3. Looking forward to road trips! In October I’m headed to Chicago for the Story Conference. Check out StoryChicago.com. I’m so excited about this conference. Then, in November, my little niece Nola is having a 1st birthday party complete with tutus and top hats. Oh, yes, we WILL DANCE!

4. And still Diet Coke Lime.

5. Biggest Loser. People, last night two guys on this show gave up their spots for someone they thought needed it more. This is reality TV worth watching. Not that every season of Biggest Loser has been so honorable, but the characters this time have a genuine sense of kindness and compassion toward one another.

This week I did something to my lower leg. I don’t know what it was exactly. It may have happened when I was taking out my frustrations on a mini-van seat that would go up or down. I jerked, yelled, and finally gave up. Of course, then Dan calmly reached over and had it up in two seconds. Anyway, the next morning my left leg was very sore, like it feels after a work-out. (Yep, I work-out infrequently enough that I am sore EVERY time afterwards. That is sort of what I’m getting at here today.)

So I don’t pay much attention to it even though a passing thought that morning was, you know, this hurts right in that place where you are supposed to watch for blood clots when you are pregnant. (I’m not pregnant, but I have been so many times that I remember all the rules.) Off I go to church, lunch, naps, more church, and Sunday Night Football. Nothing much to see here, folks, just a routine Sunday.

Monday rolls around and I teach all day (literally, I have a night class on Mondays from 6-9). Tuesday my leg is still strangely sore, but I’m still not thinking much about it. I even put on heels. Then Tuesday afternoon I look down and see ELEPHANT CANKLE! I had swollen ankles all the time when I was pregnant, but this was just the one side. The side that I now knew contained a blot clot that would soon be rushing to my brain or heart.

I went into Serenity mode. This is it, isn’t it? I’m going to leave behind a gorgeous husband and four beautiful children because of that stupid van seat and my obviously inferior blood supply-and-carry system! I called Mom who said call Dad. Never good. I called Dad who listened to my symptoms and then calmly said, “Huh, it sounds like you’re working on a blood clot.” I knew it.

Since my pain wasn’t acute, Dad prescribed aspirin (to thin my blood?!), a little exercise (to work it out?!), and then elevation. I stood around at a volleyball game with the kids for awhile twisting and moving my foot into all kinds of positions trying to determine WHERE exactly it was hurting. Dad’s point your toe up indicator was opposite for me: I had more pain when I pointed my toes down. This information must have put his mind to ease right away because he sort of laughed at me when I called him back and said, “Dan wants me to make sure I’m not going to throw a clot to my lung in my sleep or anything.”

Still, even when you know that it is probably nothing, you still worry. I knew I wasn’t hiding it well when Dan asked me more than once, “How’s your head?” Meaning, how well are you controlling your thought life? Not so well, Mr. I Don’t Have a Bad Feeling About This and That’s Good Enough For Me! Around that point he forbid me from looking anything up on WebMD and made me promise not to google “blot clot in the leg.”

And so I laid there on my old sofa with my foot as high as pillows and blankets could make it and I watched Biggest Loser with my kids. And since I was feeling introspective anyway, I let Jesse hold my elevated foot on his lap. And I let Macy crawl all over my head. And I let them all stay up until the challenge, which is their favorite part of this reality show and which is usually not on until after their bedtime. They DVR the weigh-in and watch it early in the morning when Dan and I are still asleep. Dan put everyone to bed while I laid there and listened to the hustle of teeth brushing, allergy medicine taking, and brace strapping. Then the required rounds of last minute trips to the potty and drinks of water. Good sounds that sometimes annoy me with their longevity. This night so sweet. It was, perhaps, the last night I would hear them. : ) I didn’t sleep well that night.

But, no, I woke up the next morning after all. The pillows I had stacked under my leg had long slipped off the bed in the night and my ankle was still puffy but much less swollen. Since then my pain has lessened and my swelling continues to go down. I’ve accepted the fact that my body is not 20 years old anymore. I bought some of those little low-dose aspirin bottles. I’ve put my foot up every night but slept well. The famous words in our family, although proven to not always be true (and therein lies the problem), are from Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop: “It’s not a tum-ah!” And it wasn’t. And I’m fine. Just old and occasionally dramatic.

Hello, Internet. My name is Felicity White and I have Tweet Envy.

Surprisingly enough, my Facebook world and my Twitter world have only a few overlapping contacts. Recently I noticed that after reading updated tweets I felt a little blue – that kind of blue that has no real point of origin but manifests as a general lack of serotonin. Sort of a PMS-blue or a forgot-to-eat-lunch-blue.  However, reading Facebook status updates rarely made me feel that way; in fact, quite the opposite.

After analyzing the contacts on each list, I recognized the problem. My Facebook contacts are, in general, my friends and family. Real people that I actually know and live life with on at least a semi-regular basis. If I’m not related to them or live near them, I probably have been in some kind of everyday life kind of relationship with them at some point in my history (school, church, work, etc.).

Twitter relationships are different for me. While I follow several family members and friends, I also follow a lot of people that I would otherwise never know. And, for awhile, this was one of the great joys of Twitter: new people, new experiences, a taste of different lifestyles. But that’s when it started getting hairy for me.

Via Twitter I learned that a bunch of really cool people live “on campus” in Franklin, Tennessee, a charming historic area outside of Nashville. I never knew I wanted to live in Franklin, Tennessee!

Via Twitter I learned that some people visit the beach every year. Every year, people! My son is eight and he has NEVER BEEN TO THE BEACH! I never knew I wanted to go to the beach every year!

Via Twitter I learned just how much free time celebrities actually have every day and it is A LOT!

Via Twitter I learned that EVERYONE exercises more than I do!

Via Twitter I learned that so-and-so is getting ANOTHER book deal and so-and-somebody-else is co-writing songs the church will be singing for decades. O.K. – So I’ve sort of always known I’d like to write books and songs. : ) But apparently, I’m not too happy to read about other people doing it all the time while I sit in my windowless, non-charming office in the northeast corner of land-locked Missouri. Apparently, THAT is just too much.

But, believe it or not, I don’t think I’m woman enough to just shut down my Twitter account altogether. Instead, I think a simple change of perspective is in order. After all, I may not take them to the beach, but my kids are pretty darn gorgeous and fun to be with. A water tower with a cross on top may be the closest thing I have to a city skyline, but I live with a lot of amazing people who are trying, like me, to the best of their ability to love God in this place. And I’m pretty sure what they say about the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence is true.

I am, however, considering a new approach to my tweets.

Got any suggestions for how I could use my tweets to give someone ELSE tweet envy?! : )

I shared last week about how going through a crisis showed me how big the world is and how God uses us to help one another. This weekend I was reminded of another thing I learned from that crisis.

Saturday Dan headed south for an outdoor concert and the kids and I had the day to ourselves. We are the keepers of two special summer projects, one intentional and one serendipitous (I’ll share that one another day). Our intentional project is the Sunflower Fort. We cleared out a 8 x 8 foot flower bed and planted sunflower seeds along the edges. Inside we put a thick layer of mulch. We left a one foot space as a “doorway.” Even though we planted late, the plants are really starting to live up to their name, Mammoth Sunflowers!

Making the choice to hang around outside with the kids in our Sunflower Fort instead of straying inside alone to clean or study is the direct result of the kind of promises Dan and I made to ourselves in the tiny NICU room where preemie Claire fought for life. We never wanted to put ANYTHING as a priority over our family. We always wanted to remember how clear our priorities were sitting in that room.

Sure, I’d love a cleaner house. It probably should be cleaner; I know there is a place for that. But these days, if I’m making choices, the living souls get my time. Everybody and everything else can take a number and enjoy the hold music! : )

To the Fort, I say to you!