Christmas Letter 2009

Family Fun Night frosting Christmas Cookies


MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!

Well, I almost talked myself into doing this the old fashioned way and sending it snail mail, and it almost happened. I got such wonderful cards and Christmas letters hanging on my wall that it was a real temptation. But I think its always best to know your strengths and weaknesses, considering the assessment of my abilities, I have accepted the fact that the process of typing, printing, stuffing, buying stamps, stamping, and taking them to the post office requires too much focused attention for me. In the past ,pre-internet, I managed to do all that, but I would have to rename it Valentines letter, some years It was Happy summer. I have discovered that I suffer from age induced ADD, or as my son Mitch puts it ADOS…….Attention defecit ooooo shiny. Therefore you are receiving an online version of what I would have sent. Instructions: highlight, press print, place in your mail box, and pretend you’re delighted to receive this. After the technical delays Im experiencing today, I might have to go back to the old way.
Quick Recap. All our children are in the area, Mike and Mark on the eastside, both are still working on settling into a permanent career. Melodee is working hard at getting a degree from Mt Marys, she’s chosen Occupational Therapy and has about two years left. Matt and Sarah are expecting their first child in January, We are both excited about being Grandparents. Joe is still at GE, it will be 30 years this Summer. We will celebrate 32 years of marriage in June as well. It seems like only yesterday, that we were young parents with a bunch of little kids. Now were old parents with a couple of little kids. I would wax eloquently here about aging and not feeling like you’re that old in your head, but if you’re our age, you know what I’m talking about already and if you are much younger you have no idea, its all relative, so I will refrain. Chris, I am homeschooling Mari, we are doing ok, I struggle with trying to keep her on task and still keeping it fun and educational. She likes being home, so I think we will make it to summer. Mari is on the very outgoing social end of the Glatzel scale so we have to schedule enough activities with friends. Mitch started HighSchool this year and is in the Engineering program at South. When you spend your life on the computer, or playing some sort of video game you get good at stuff. Here’s where I could go on about having to call my 10 yr old to turn on my tv. but again, you know what Im talking about.
There is a bit more news, but for those ADOS folks like me you can stop here. If you would like to read on feel free. Blessings, Hope your holidays are Joy filled with the love of the one who became flesh and dwelt among us.

Kita, the wonder dog Joe and I the kids: Mike, Mark Mel, Matt, Mari and Mitchell
Some other news events this year, My Grandma Whittaker died this summer at 99 ½. She would have been 100 this January. a lot of family relationships were mended and we got to see relatives we hadn’t in years. Funerals are always a bitter sweet time.
Last July 3rd My Dad, (Doug Whittaker), two friends and my brother in law made national news when they were lost on Lake Erie for 26 hours. They were fishing and had a load of fish in the front and were overturned by waves. I had just been home for my Grandmas funeral and my sister called to tell me that my Dad and Roy were missing. I was gearing up for two more funerals, but a couple of off duty guys in a helicopter decided to take one more sweep of the vast area and found them on the other side of where they were headed. They are calling it the Miracle on Lake Erie. My dad said it’s a shame that it takes an event like this to make you pray that long and that intensely.
Mike has been training for the Boston Marathon and this year he took part in the Lakefront Marathon and did very well. Hes becoming quite the competitive athlete.
Mark and Matt are still in a band together called “Im not a pilot” . You can check out their facebook page and hear bits of their music. They have a 4 people, Mark who writes the songs, plays keyboards and sings, Matt “the unofficial manager plays bass, Peter plays cello, writes some parts and adds a whole new dimension to the mix. And Steve is on drums.
On the same front, Mitchell has been taking drum lessons for a few months, his teacher says hes doing well. Is it just my kids who always want to be in a band? Joe doesn’t seem to think it at all unusual. Mitch and his other 9th grade friends, Jacob and Cameron are a band, they are looking for cover songs they can all play. I think its called NINJA something, or maybe that’s their Youtube videos. Mari just informed us that shes in a band too, with Emily and Elise . With a little smobbery in her voice she let us know that they are writing their own music. Marianna is taking the violin and making very good progress
So if you made it this far, I commend you, your focus is amazing. Have a great New Year.
Blessings from our house to your house.
The Glatzels

If the body of Chris woke up and moved,

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

Capitalism without Godly values leads to greed, and avarice. The heart cry of people against the greed turns into a government mandated kind of sharing called Socialism. There's obviously more to it than that, but we are against the fat insurance companies, so we want our government to handle health care, and social issues, and making sure everyone gets a fair shake.

In my opinion, its because the church, has not given water to the thirsty, in Jesus name, or taken in the widow and the orphan. Jesus love should be compelling us to go into all the world and share not just the fact that they are sinners and they need to get the ticket to a good afterlife, but we should be offering the fact that Jesus promised abundant living, through us giving and loving etc.
Cudos to all those faith base organizations who are doing disaster relief etc. and the ones helping the homeless. Imagine if all those that call on Jesus' name to be their saviour offered that salvation (saved, healed, delivered, set free, made whole) to their neighbor. It'd be different world.
To the hungry that love looks like bread, to the dying that love looks like hope, to the sick that love looks like healing. Jesus paid for it all.

I think that is what Jesus meant when he said the church needed to be salt and light. Preservation, hope, healing, a path for the lost.

We cant legislate morality, or caring. We cant tell people that abortion is wrong without providing aid to the unwed, single mothers.

happiness is overated

The last week in July we went to Green Lake Conference Center for the American Baptist Holy Spirit Renewal Ministries Conference. and as usual it was an awesome time. The main speaker was JP Moreland. I was impressed. He was a professor of Philosophy at Loyola University. His first topic was on happiness, and what he had to say stayed with me. The few points I got were, happiness is overrated, the search for it has diminishing returns and even tho the American dream is more accessible now than 30 yrs ago, people are by far more stressed and depressed. So the solution to this epidemic is to see how the definition of happiness has changed over the last couple of hundred years. Now the definition to happiness is a pleasurable feeling and we look for that in everything we do, thats how we gauge our marriages, our churches, our jobs, etc. "As long as it makes ya happy" So we are set on consuming units of pleasure to keep us happy, thus the diminishing return and the rise of depression. All of that I kinda knew, but the definition of happiness for most of history is interesting, It was to have a life well lived. To live your life for a purpose greater than yourself. Isnt that so true? Isnt that what Jesus says. If you lose yourself for my sake you will find it. Too true. So if we spend our lives pouring ourselves out for the sake of the Kingdom and the King we will have a happy life.
Its not about us !!! Well, it is but not the way we think.

facebook phenomenon 1

Its been a slow process, the first thing that happened is someone who was on my email list recommended me to be in the special facebook club. I wasnt so sure, it was a bit like being invited to a different country as a visitor, an esteemed guest. It was a little exciting to receive such a high honor. My initial contact was somewhat confusing and I didnt have the patience at first to go through the sign up stage. After a couple of old friends invited me again I finally took the time to dive in. The first thing that happened is it innocently asked if I would like to include the others in my address book, well Im not the kind of person to exclude people so I absent mindedly said OK. For the next few days my inbox was full of mail, telling me that I had new friends on facebook. Some of my nieces and nephews were connecting, it was a flurry of notes from all over. I then discovered that if I went to my home page, I could see what other people were doing at that moment, or their frame of mind for the day. This was awesome, its like being a peeping tom with permission. I have always loved people watching and now I can watch and read and see others lives from all over the world at the same time, and Im still sitting here in my jammies! I'm so impressed. I havent taken the leap yet to being a full participant. I realize that there would be a significant time commitment involved and Im still not sure about that. It does look like fun. I have one friend who is looking for Easter eggs, that looked cool. She found a rare one the other day. I wanted to see it but not bad enough to help her look.
I really like the environmental impact that this is having, a lot of plants are being put in lil green patches. I havent given anyone a plant yet, it seemed like a nice idea, but I still have a couple of reservations about it, I always kill plants and I wouldnt want to put that responsibility on someone, plus shouldnt you be able to pick out your own plant? What if youre a fern person and someone gives you a jade? You can give it back which is a nice thing.
This has to be the friendliest place Ive been to in a while. Almost daily I have a recommendation to befriend someone. Sometimes I even know the person! It gives me this warm connected to humanity feeling. I think once I actually start conversing and sending out invitations to join my cause of the week it will really feel like a group hug. I appreciate all the requests to put my birthday on their calender, wow, I am humbled by all the people who want to know my birthday, its just that at my age, Im more into not remembering that Im getting older, so I apologize for not responding to those, they are all sitting in my request section waiting, along with the pet requests, this one Im not so keen on, Ive got a dog, she is a high maintenance blond and more than enough for me. It would be great to get a cat, I have always liked cats and have never been able to have one because of relatives with allergies, Joe cant stand cats and he wouldnt even have to know. I would name it razzle. I dont know why, it just seems like a cat name, If you dont like it get your own virtual cat.
Well one of these days I will take the leap and dive in all the way. I will be throwing parties, and planting stuff and joining causes, it will be a great time. Meanwhile Im happy seeing the pictures of the non virtual lives out there. Its good to know that real life is still happening. There is value in having a community however virtual it is, communication is a precious thing. Although I do miss the old fashioned phone call now and then. So see you out there all my fellow citizen's of facebook land. Virtual hugs all around.

facebook phenomenon 2

I have one more thing to say about facebook. As much as I love the ability to virtually connect with a global community I have some serious reservations about a couple of things on here. It makes me wonder who, and why. Who is it that makes up all those self analyzing tests? And why ? I mean they are a good way to find out exactly what kind of cereal you would be if you were in fact cereal, or what kind of candy bar, or what famous person in history, those are all things that Ive wanted to know but never had the right kind of test to find out. The one I really dont want to take is the where I should live test. This one could be bad, Im afraid that if it tells me I should be living in the country I would be faced with a life question, why am I not where I am supposed to be ?
I guess, its a good thing to get to know yourself better, and let others in on who you are, it would also be a helpful device if this was around a decade from now and we could take these tests again. How much have we changed ? Am I as crunchy as I used to be, am I still the novelist I thought I was? It could be helpful in our old age , escpecially for the under 30 set, you have a lifetime of self discovery ahead, and thank goodness for facebook and all those quizzes that let you see who you really are. So I think I have the why down, but the who is still lingering out there with all my other conspiracy theories, isnt this all very public information? So the world knows Im soft and smushy vs crunchy, not really a big deal, Unless....its all a plot to profile us then Im in trouble because the crunchy ones are better I'm sure of it. And, Im not sure of this but when you get a gadget like a plant or join a hatchling thing arent you giving someone your contact information? I suppose facebook has that as public info anyway, or are you then opening yourself up to a lot more spam ? Be careful out there citizens .
Joe isnt on facebook he usually doesnt sit still long enough, but when I showed him all the little quizzes and tests you could take, he thought it was stupid, which doesnt really surprise me, those who arent in the club just dont get it .

multi level marketing schemes

What has Amway, Vita whatever, email chain letters with recipes or prayers, emails that end with "you must pass this on to ten of your friends or you'll contract a venereal disease", jewelry parties, and the new face book phenomenon "25 things about me", have in common? I will answer that for you, what they all have in common is that if you wait long enough all your friends will have contacted you about them. Which can be bad or good. I like some of the Amway products so if I wait long enough someone will approach me and I can buy what I need. I don't care for forwards just on principle so they go into the auto delete file most of the time. I have sold about every party plan out there for extra money and its usually a good product as well, but I dont go to them simply because. I got a real nice invite to write down 25 things about me. I am thinking about what I should write. It will take some mulling over and just about the time I think I will actually complete that lil survey, which is cute by the way, someone else tags me and Im it again. Now Im feeling very popular. so decisions, decisions, do I do this one or that one or both. More thinking when BAM! I get another one. Then I read the instructions, I would have to send the survey to 25 people. Ok now I get it. I am figuring that if I wait a few more days even weeks I might get a whole bunch of those invites and then I can just do them all in one shot. My real question is how long it might take to reach everybody on the planet with this thing. I think I asked the same question to an Amway person. Man if we were marketing something wed be in business.

The passport

The Passport story
When our daughter Mari was born in March she was only 3 weeks premature but because of my blood pressure problems she was very little and had to stay in the hospital for a few more days. She was only 4”11” oz when we brought her home. Weirdly enough Joe was in Australia the day I went into labor and arrived home right after her birth, cutting short his trip and cancelling his “walk about” that he had planned for the weekend. I told him he should have just stayed, after all I had 5 already I could’ve done it on my own.
Later that year in August He got to go to Israel for work and this time I really wanted to go, but being that she was still little, and that he didn’t know where the team might be staying , I chose to stay home. My mother lived in Jerusalem at the time and although I really wanted to see her too, Joe would be in Haifa so I would have to be on my own down there anyway. It didn’t make tons of sense to go together. Well he left on a Friday and when he arrived he called and said you should have come, I’m looking at the sunset on the Mediterranean Sea and it’s beautiful! They were scheduled to be there about 10 days and so I thought well if I could find a cheap ticket I could leave and stay with my mom after they leave. I looked for good fares and finally found one leaving in two days so Sunday night I booked a flight out for me and Mari. I was scheduled to leave on Wednesday.
I called Swiss Air to check to see if Mari needed her passport and they informed me that all she needed was a notarized birth certificate, I was glad to have Monday and Tuesday to arrange for the children and get the proper papers. Chicago O’Hare is 1 ½ hrs from our house and so I parked our van at a friend’s house and they drove me to connect with the Shuttle, bags and all. It works well, they just drop you off at International gate 5, and you get in line. I got there in plenty of time and when I got up to the counter, gave my ticket to the lady (Sharon) she asked for the passports, as I gave her mine I explained what Swiss Air had told me over the phone, She looked puzzled and said just a minute, when she came back, she informed me that I had been given faulty information and that I would not be able to get on the plane without a passport for her. Even if they did let me on the plane, the customs people in Israel would not let me off. This was not good news.
Now what!?! So I reacted like any rational women my age with a baby , I just stood there and cried.
Sharon was very understanding. She gave me her card with her information and the number to the passport agency in Chicago. By this time it was almost 4 and the flight was leaving so she said that she would book me on the same flight out the next day. I went to the phone booth to try and contact the passport agency to see if it was even possible to get a passport in one day. It’s one of those large bureaucracy’s and all you get is an automated line to make an appointment. The first scheduled appt. was at 3:30 the next day. The flight left at 4 and the train from Chicago was almost an hour long. So I took it and hoped they would understand my situation. It was then that I was tempted to just take the bus home and forget it. But the ticket was non-refundable and I was this far already so… I took the airport shuttle to a nearby hotel. Did I mention that it was one on the hottest days on record in Chicago? We stayed in our room, with the air conditioning on. I continued to call the passport agency for any openings and ate some of the yogurt and rice I had packed for my mom. The next day was going to be long I just had a feeling. It turned out that I was more right than I realized
I got up the next morning, checked out and they graciously allowed me to keep my bags behind the counter till I got back. So weighed down with nothing but the baby, stroller, and my huge baby bag, I was on my adventure. On the shuttle back to the airport I asked the passengers the burning question of the hour, was it even possible to get a passport in one day. One of the ladies said she was a stewardess and thought that if I could prove it was an emergency that I might be able to. I would need a ticket with today’s date, and a passport photo of the baby. OH ! Glad she told me. I stopped at the Swiss Air ticketing desk to ask them to update my ticket. At that time of the morning there was nobody in site. Frantically I searched for someone to help me. A kind lady at the next airline told me they wouldn’t be in till noon and that she thought there was an office in Chicago. It was 9:30 am and this was just one more thing I had to add to my list, Swiss air office, passport photo place, and passport agency. I got a map and directions to where I was going and got on the train. It took an hour. All I remember about that trip is that the air con was not working and we were dripping wet with sweat. Mari looked ghostly and I was afraid she would dehydrate so I tried to keep her drinking all day. When we arrived I had to run about 6 blocks to the Swiss Air office and up to the 8th floor. I basically carried the baby in the stroller while running up and down stairs to the underground. I was thankful for the cooler air in the tunnels.
When I finally reached the lady at the desk in the Swiss Air office I was on a mission and pumped with adrenaline. Panting I explained my situation (at about 100 words per minute) after insisting I calm down, she hurried the best she could and printed a ticket with the right date. As I left I got instructions for the nearest place that did passport photos. It turned out to be a walgreens 1 block from the passport office. I needed to cash a travelers check, to get the photo, but at that moment I didn’t care. As it turned out it was a good thing. With the photo in hand I headed up to the passport office, to explain the problem to the lady behind the glass. I told her that yeah, I did have an appointment… but it was at 3:30 pm and that would be too late to catch my flight. She had me fill out paper work and when I handed it in. It was about 11 am. I felt I was doing good, she said they would call me soon. By 11:30 they called me and I was starting to have hope that I’d make it back to the airport by 2:00 pm, time for check in. Plus I would have time to swing over and get my bags at the hotel. I calculated that it would take another 15 minutes or so to run from the train to the terminal, so if I got out of there by 12:30 ish I’d be in good shape. Well when I got up to the counter to pay for the passport she said that it had been approved. (GREAT !) and, that I needed 75.00 in cash (whew! I had it!) and, that the pick up time would be 1:30........... WHAT !!!! Very patiently I explained that 1:30 would be too late for me to make it back to the airport in time, and that I needed to get the passport now. She patronizingly said, if it’s meant to be then it will work out. OH COME ON!!!! So when did passport agents become philosophers. My adrenaline had run smack dab into a brick wall and there was nothing to do but WAIT… for an hour and a half. We went to Mcdonalds, but it seemed that no matter where we went that day the aircon was not working. So after a quick burger we headed back to the agency to wait some more. I got there a little after 1:00 and went to sit in the room where they were going to hand them out. I signed in and figured if I got it at 1:30 I might just be able to make it… if I really hustled. The room slowly started to fill up, and at 1:30 there were probably 40 people in there waiting, and they didn’t start calling out the names till 1:40. name after name, nope they weren’t going by first sign in. and no they weren’t in alphabetical order, a poll of the people around me agreed that it was quicker on the train to get back to the airport than a cab. 1:55 . I was chewing my nails. 2:00 about 20 people left. ARGGGGHHHH !!!! Finally 2:10 they called me. Got it, checked it, poor little baby was asleep when they took her picture, but it was her, bald little head and all. So, I was out of there, I flew down the stairs with Marianna, bag and stroller, and out the door to the nearest underground to catch the train back to the airport. As I was standing on the platform asking people, which train was going to O’hare, someone pointed at the train that had just closed its doors and was moving away. AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! They said, no worries another one will be along in about 15 minutes. I got on that train at 2:30. There was a slim chance I could still do this. I borrowed one of those rare cell phones (can you believe I didn’t have a cell phone in 1999 ! ) and called the number on Sharon’s card for the Swiss Air desk, they said that if I got there at 3:30 they could maybe still get me on, but my luggage was still at the hotel! I borrowed the phone again and yes they could deliver it, but only if I was in the airport. I called Swiss Air, they could not go outside and get it for me because they were too busy booking passengers right now to look for luggage. The man holding onto the pole in front of me was dripping sweat from his elbow. Yep the aircon was still out on the train. About 10 minutes before we got there I called the hotel again and told them that they could deliver my bags to International gate 5, departure. We got off the train at 3:30 and I ran the 15 minutes to my gate in 10. I was 45 with a 5 month old so I think that was a miracle in itself. Sharon was at the back and saw me coming, running together to the front of the check in line for the flight I told her about my other problem, my bags were not here to check yet, we called the hotel again and they said they were on their way, but they had to go to the arrival level 2 floors down. Sharon said she would watch Mari, I paused and then said, ” OK I trust you” and I ran down to the first floor. I stood outside waiting, not so patiently, for about, 10 minutes, I finally thought, forget it, they can send them later and I ran back up to the top floor, as I came to the top of the escalator, Sharon and I saw the hotel shuttle van pulling up in front of the doors at the same time, so we both ran out to the shuttle to get my bags, they came to the right place after all (Mari was still in her stroller by the other attendant) As we were running to the front again I told Sharon I had one more little problem, could she call my house and tell them to call Joe in Haifa so he would know that I did get on the plane, when I talked to them the night before, I said I would try. So I wanted to be sure someone would come to Tel Aviv to pick me up. She assured me she would call. I scribbled the number while she checked my bags and told the other girl to run me to the front of security. We ran, she hustled me through security and I got on the plane and collapsed just as they were putting on the seat belt/no smoking sign. I strapped her in to the basinet on the wall and started to unwind for the first time in 24 hours. The poor guy next to me had to hear all about my stress and he very calmly said, well you're here now, so its ok, YES! TRUE!, ok, I did it !
When I got off the flight in Tel Aviv. I looked around and there seemed to be no one to pick me up, I was about ready to have a break down , racking my brain trying to figure out a way to get to Haifa, by myself, in a strange country, with a baby. Then it dawned on me that I was still inside security and that on the other side of customs and baggage was where people waited to pick you up. You can’t imagine my relief to see my husband, our good friend Dave and my mom. I felt like a little kid who gets lost at the circus and then finally finds their parents. No more adrenaline only relief and exhaustion. Thank God we had made it. It turned out that Joe was able to stay another week waiting for a part to be shipped, so we went to Jerusalem together to visit my mom anyway. It was awesome, I loved Israel, I wouldn’t recommend it in August however, but it was totally worth it. I felt a little like a football guy, dodging blocks and jumping over hurdles going around the opposition, there might have been a good moral of the story there, but I will leave you to make up one for yourself, this is exhausting enough to just write in down.