The Good Part Blog

ATTENTION anyone that I left stranded here....

2011-08-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

Come on over to my new blog!

http://www.mudpuddlesandballetslippers.blogspot.com/

I just started blogging at this new address and plan to keep my old blog but won't update it anymore.

You're welcome to join me as I get back into the world of blogging!

My 7th Mother's Day

2011-05-09T00:52:00.005-05:00

Days. Days. Days.

We all have them. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are just normal. You know, the not stand-out-forever-in-our-memory kind of days. Days that just evaporate into history without any indelible impression.

Pick up a calendar from last year and randomly pick a day in May. Pick a Tuesday. Or a Thursday. Don't pick a birthday. Or anniversary. Or anything special. Just pick a random day. What were you doing that day? Was it cloudy? Did your husband take the garbage out? Did the kids clean their rooms? Did you get all your housework done?

Yeah. You can't remember. Can you?

But maybe it was a random, normal day that you chose to make extraordinary. You took your kids and included them in a project around the house. And then typical you, who isn't organized or remembers to record things, forgot to write the fun day on the calendar. But your kids remembered. They still talk about it. Yeah, you could've gotten the job done so much faster by yourself but really, it wouldn't have been worth it. TIME with your kids was worth it.

TIME making memories is what makes doing chores important. It's not the act of the chore that's a success; it's the concept learned, the wisdom shared, the vision passed down and the sense of accomplishment celebrated that we aim for in training our kids. A clean room is NOT the goal. That's just a bonus.

In the moment, it feels daunting and tiresome. But so many of our entire DAYS will be forgotten in our memory. They'll just fall into the Mundane and Normal file where all everyday days go.

But today happens only ONCE. My baby is only 4 months, 1 week and 3 days old TODAY. Tomorrow she will be 4 months, 1 week and FOUR days old. Yeah it's only one day but pile those days up a little and pretty soon you have 30. Or 365. Or more.

Perspective is everything though. Like my laundry for instance. It's clean (score). It's all in the laundry room (score). In baskets (score). But it's unfolded. Fail.

But I decided that since we have a laundry room, what else should be in it but laundry. Right?

This weekend was fun. One of those "Ah, now I remember why I love being a mom" weekends. My husband doted on me. My kids were.... well, my kids. And my baby added a few more ounces of fatness to her luscious rolls. My house is pretty much a mess (but the garage is clean) and the laundry has maxed out the very last laundry basket I own.

But I don't care.

Because a year from now, I won't remember that I didn't have all our laundry folded and put away. But I will remember all the fun we had just being together.

Happy Mother's Day!

www.31daystoclean.com

2011-04-27T19:17:00.005-05:00

The next thing on my reading list. Wait. What's a reading list? The only kind of list I have is a "to-do list." A to-do list of things that never seem to make it to the "done" list.

Well. Maybe THIS is what I need to get a DONE LIST to replace every one of my TO-DO LISTS.

Except for learning how to clean your house, I have no idea what this book is about. And no, that was not just a disjointed disclaimer. Or was it?

But since it was FREE (if I blogged about it) and my house is pretty much anything but clean and the subtitle says, "Have a Martha house the Mary way" and my blog subtitle talks something about Martha and Mary (you know, that Bible verse up there? Yeah. You know what I mean) and my house is pretty much anything but clean and I'm pretty much a Mary-wanna-be but stuck in a Martha mode and my house is anything but clean, I thought all 27 of those reasons were good enough to advertise this book on my blog despite the fact that I have yet to read it.

Okay. THAT was a disjointed disclaimer.

Ahem.

Have I mentioned my house is pretty much anything but clean?

I do supper dishes after 11:00pm.

I fold laundry only to put it in a basket and leave it there because that's the exact amount of time I have to do laundry.

I clean my bathroom because government officials would start making visits to my house if I let the bathroom go one more ~~week~~ day.

I mop the kitchen floor only because the dog was sick all over it.

I don't take pregnancy tests because not puking while mopping up a kitchen floor that had a sick dog on it proves that I am not pregnant.

(okay, that last reason was random.)

I have never scrubbed my diningroom floor. Ever. My MIL did it once when she was visiting. That was 4 months ago though. So I guess it's time.

I still haven't written all my "Thank You" cards for people who so kindly shared gifts with us when Korynne was born. I've only written 2. Oh wait. Make that 3 thank you cards successfully written. That dining room floor that got scrubbed once? Yeah....

I only scrub the shower after I bathe the dog anymore.

I've only bathed our 4 year old dog once.

I grow science experiments in my fridge.

As if I didn't have enough laundry to do, I decided to cloth diaper my baby. Which has been a wonderful choice. Actually. I'll tell you about that later. Maybe. IF I get my to-do list done....

And last but not least, I NEVER blog. Ever. Anymore. At all.

So maybe if I had a clean house, I'd have more time. To blog and write thank you's and stuff.

I'm the type of person that if you dropped in on me and my house was a mess, I wouldn't be able to sit and casually visit until I at least got the living room picked up. But since I know that might make my guest feel bad for stopping in unannounced, I ignore the impulse to tidy the room. And then with all the courage and strength and will power that I have left after 4 natural and unmedicated child births (please don't ask why I did that), I force myself to SIT. But I HATE sitting when the room I'm sitting in that I'm responsible for, is a mess.

I would love to be able to relax and be stress free in a messy house that's mine. I pray that God would make me content with clutter and messes. But He refuses to answer my prayers in this department.

So I guess I'm gonna give THIS book a try. You should check it out too. :)

In Which She Complains About A Good Life...

2011-03-14T13:09:00.008-05:00

It's Monday and I feel grumpy.

So I sat down and started thinking about how ~~horrible~~ my life really is. And all the reasons why I'm allowed to complain and have a bad attitude.

#1: I'm tired. I was up a lot with a baby last night. And the night before. And all the nights before that since December 28th of last year. A baby that wanted to eat and add to her squeezable, kissable rolls of soft, baby fat. The nerve! What's so bad about a healthy eating baby and the ability to provide nourishment for the fat little thing? Some couples don't even have a baby.

So IF I didn't have a baby and had no hope of ever getting one, THEN I could be in a bad mood.

#2: My house is a wreck. When I look at the cause of each mess, I see a consistent trend. Toys, dirt, remote controlled car, a little red boot, dolls, scraps of papers decorated with 5-year-old penmanship, a tiny sock, an art project... on and on it goes. Clearly, there are children in this house and obviously, the children are healthy, robust and lively. Why would I complain about normal, healthy kids when some parents are sitting in a big sterile hospital watching their sick, weak child lay in a hard white bed with cords and wires and noisy alarms that constantly flash information confirming the sickness of their beloved child? That mom would give anything to trip over a pile of toys in the middle of the dining room.

So IF one of my kids were sick and perishing from an illness only known by a handful of highly educated specialists, THEN I could be in a bad mood.

#3: My husband doesn't understand. If he did understand, he would just do the laundry. And home school the kids. And wash the dishes. And offer to make supper. But would he really? Just because he doesn't offer to do all that stuff, doesn't mean he doesn't care. He's a guy. Not one iota in his body is geared towards being a housewife. If I wanted a Superwoman for a husband, I should've married something else. And besides, when I ask him to help, he readily jumps up and gets a job done without complaining. His smiles affirm me and his love supports me. I'm a mom to four kids but only because their dad is the man he is. Some women have the kids but no support from a man who's there for her every step of the way.

So IF I had a family with no real father, THEN I could be in a bad mood.

The bottom line is I have a sturdy, warm house, sun streaming through my energy efficient windows, a troop of healthy and adventurous kids, a strong and loving husband and a cute, fat baby wrapped in a pink blanket, topped with a soft tuft of dark, messy hair.

My freezer is full of food (no excuse for not being able to cook), my wash machine and dryer work (when I do get a load put through), the toilet, sinks and shower all function properly (even if they do need to be cleaned) and a vacuum and broom work wonders (when they do finally get used).

Why am I complaining then?

That's a very good question.

Mother of Four

2011-02-19T07:00:00.001-06:00

So. Now I'm a mother of four. Two boys and two girls. I love my life and all it's craziness. Yet I feel too young to be the mom of four kids. Just yesterday, I was a kid myself. Wow.

Now that I've had kids, I have to say that the fourth child feels like the ultimate adjustment.

No longer will we fit in a 5-seat pick up truck.

Or a normal sized restaurant booth.

Or be considered a small/normal sized family.

Or fit comfortably in a small house.

Or have ample room in our mini-van.

Or evenly sandwich ourselves, kid, parent, kid, parent, kid in family pictures.

Or all fit on a normal size couch.

But I love it. I love that our days, activities, life and vehicles are overflowing with these little people. From the robust hollers of morning breakfast to the tiny, sleeping cherub faces at night, each moment is an adventure and frequent reminder to the busy-ness and crazy-ness of life with little people.
It's been seven weeks since I took on my new title as Mother of Four. Seven exhausting yet blissful weeks. From 8lbs 5oz all the way up to almost 12lbs, this little person keeps changing our world. Korynne Elizabeth Nelson greeted our lives on a chilly, winter morning (12/28/10) after putting in her leave of absence notification 26 hours earlier. It was a long and exhausting journey but the bright eyes and bushy head of hair, complete with the fattest cheeks ever, soon peered up at our tired faces and made the whole process worth it a hundred times over. Since that moment, she hasn't stopped demanding food, accepting our kisses on her fat little cheeks, screaming night and day for all the things little babies scream for and filling our house with the heavenly scent of Baby.

The sleepless nights with our littlest person, are soon coming to an end. The bright eyes and alert attentiveness that happens on that precious little face in the dead of night, will soon be taken over by "normal" sleep patterns. And these newborn days will be over.

Earlier this week on the morning of our 8th Anniversary, little Korynne was in a deep conversation with her daddy. Of course, all the conversing was taking place on the daddy end of the conversation but suddenly, that little girl wrapped her daddy even tighter around her fat little finger and let out a cute little baby coo. And that daddy, while wrapped snuggly around that tiny finger, gushed and swooned despite his manly, athletic, six-foot, four-inch frame and in the most excitement I've ever seen that man in, said, "Honey! She said her first word!"
Yes, being mommy of four, really can't be better than this.

Boots or Barefoot

2011-02-17T15:25:00.004-06:00

It's the middle of winter. February 17, to be exact. Considered by most to be the height of the cold season.

Not this year.

The snow has pretty much melted in a few day's time, the skies are blue, the sun is bright and the air is warm.

The thermometer reads 70F. Yeah. I'm serious.

Hello to my long lost, neglected blog on this perfect day! For once in the middle of winter, the place I hail from is beautiful. Bouquets of flowers are evenly posted on random tables indicating the special event that took place just two days before: our 8th anniversary.

The grill on the deck is screaming for hamburgers and the scent of summer in the air gives one an uncontrollable desire for picnic weather food. Soft wind floats through the house from the open windows, beckoning all to follow its trail to the great outdoors. A week ago we were wearing boots. Today, sandals are even too much for this barefoot weather. Like I said, this weather couldn't be more perfect.

It may sound like I'm describing a tropical location where it's always warm and the skies are always blue and the weather is always perfect. Actually, I'm not. I'm describing the same place where a year go, people were dying from Cabin Fever and the roads were iced over, forcing people to stay inside their warm homes where heating bills sky rocketed for months. The skies were grey and cloudy. Blowing snow shrink wrapped our houses. No one dared to go outside for fear the very skin on their faces would become charred with a bitter frostbite.

Okay, maybe it wasn't quite that extreme but sub-zero temps that lasted over a month, sure made the winter long.

And now summer is here. In the middle of February. In the Midwest.

Of course it won't stay long as snow is predicted in the near forecast but knowing that winter has been overcome by summer, even just for several days, brings hope that soon winter will be gone forever.

We love you, Summer. Thanks for the visit.

On Educating 6-Year-Olds And The Challenge Of 1st Grade

2010-08-04T10:12:00.002-05:00

6-year-old boy to an adult: "Where did the ark land?"

Adult: "Ummmmm...." *racking brain feriously ~~trying not to look stupid~~ trying to help young child discover the answers to life's deep secrets*

Boy: "Where is the ark?"

Adult: "Well, um... ahem... why do you want to know?" (there, the balls in his court. The most clever design of human nature is to retaliate a hard question with an even harder question.)

Boy: "Because I want to go there when I grow up."

Adult: "Oh! Why do you want to go there?" (maybe he has an answer to why he wants to know where it is but as to the WHY he wants to actually go there, well, this'll make him think.)

Boy: "So that I can do what God tells me if there's a flood again."

Adult makes mental note to research the flood, ark location and how to teach child that the earth will never flood again... a reality said child has yet to grasp everytime he hears the story of Noah's Ark.

I'm almost positive this topic isn't included in 1st grade curriculum so why is my "First Grader" exploring these questions? Oh yeah, that's the nice thing about homeschooling; you can learn about anything you want even before you learn phonics. I get it now.

Adult: *goes to http://www.google.com/ to obtain necessary information in order to educate young child on the dynamics of Noah's ark* (actually, I went to this site instead since it's my favorite search engine.)

Later that day, the boy began to inform the adult and anyone and everyone who would listen HOW he was going to search for and retrieve Noah's ark.

He figured he could just go to wherever the ark was, look at it and bring it back. On a rope of course. But when I explained that the place where the ark is, the people there are very protective of their country and their government would put him in jail, he realized he had a challenge.

So he asked me what I thought he could do.

I told him he could fly to a country by the country where the ark is. And then when it's dark, either crawl over the boarder into the ark's country, or maybe ride a camel.

Hearing he'd be put in jail if he was caught, he decided to bring an American policeman along. Of course, policemen always are the best way to handle emergency situations. Even on the other side of the world. And if one policeman wasn't enough, he decided he'd just bring them all.

Understanding that especially Americans aren't welcomed in Arabic places, he thought he could disguise himself and speak Spanish.

He had some hard questions. "So the ark landed where the people are still very wicked?" was one of them.

If the flood was to cleanse the earth from sin, it seems strange that the people around the ark were STILL wicked. As if one flood wasn't enough, right? (obviously, he's been listening to his Bible stories.)

And he had one more question.... "Why couldn't the ark just land here?" (like, what a waste-of-an-ark that it had to land around "wicked people.")

So he began thinking up plans...

He could dig a hole underground and literally "go under cover."

He could fly in a rocket that didn't go into space.

He could go in a jet and go into space, hang a rope down over "that world" and catch Noah's ark. And of course, bring it home. And then he could set it up in America so other people could see it and he'd start building a whole bunch of arks for people to see.

He could just fly in a jet and not put English words on the outside of the aircraft. Spanish would work, he explained.

He wouldn't let the "wicked people" see his passport.

He wouldn't speak English so they wouldn't think he was American. "I'd have to learn a lot a lot a lot of Spanish though."

And finally he decided he'd just build an ark by himself. But when I told him it wouldn't be Noah's ark but rather Landon's ark, he didn't like that idea.

"So it wouldn't be Noah's ark?" he asked. "Nope," I told him.

It's just not the authentic thing if it's not THE Noah's Ark. So he went back to figuring out how to get Noah's actual Ark. And knowing him, he'll stew over this for weeks and months until he either comes up with a plan or rocket ship or something or moves on to something more challenging. Like world peace.

After having this conversation, I can imagine what's in our school curriculum this year. And here I thought First Grade was going to be, you know, elementary. And I thought the most difficult thing I'd have to teach him this year, was how to read. Boy, was I wrong.

Not wanting to be outdone by his big brother (after overhearing every word about this whole Noah's Ark Plan), Alex declared randomly, "I need to go into the cont'wee and fwy my space wocket some time."

It's so fun not having normal kids..

A Day In My Life

2010-08-02T10:00:00.001-05:00

So there was this time I had a son. Actually, I had two of them. And as I remember now, I had a daughter too. They were a lively bunch... always living life to the fullest and making the most of every situation. Now that I think about it, they were great motivators in inspiring a "Live To The Hilt" mentality in life. They really should write a book someday. Or at least start a website where they can share all their experiences, concepts and deep thoughts.

(In this fast-food-couch-potato-culture we live in, I'm sure it be a big hit.)

Anyway, one day in particular, I woke up one morning to lemon juice spilled all over the kitchen floor. And two small children busily wiping it up with sticky, sopping wet towels. It was a sticky situation. Trying to embrace their vibrant outlook on life, I utilized the situation and actually mopped my kitchen floor that day. It worked out great.

And then later that day, their industrious and ever entrepreneur brother (who was also my son, of course), took on the task of scraping the chipping Robin's Egg Blue paint off our picnic table. This was a task I had put off for several months using the excuse I didn't have the right "tools" to do the job with.

But as I observed this son of mine who barely stood past my knee, it impressed me to see his "think-out-of-the-box" mannerisms as I watched him work. Instead of using a paint scraper and a toxic paint-stripping chemical, he dug into the fading wood with a wired dog brush and dye-free, Green Works Natural Surface cleaner. His chubby little arm boasted a growing bi-cep: proof he was putting a good amount of elbow grease into this neglected project.

Not wanting to be out-done by her career oriented younger brother who seemed to already have a degree in Environmentally Friendly Picnic Table Maintenance, the sister of that boy took on a Photography Photo Challenge and created interesting snapshots of household items. Using her hand to shield light in such a way, she tipped and angled the camera in front of all kinds of rare specimens. Like the dolphin bath toy. And her ink-stained purse. And the lamp she had broken during a very fast expedition on her feet through the living room one day.

As the day progressed, so did my children's pursuits in life. During an artistic plunge in the Lego bin, they commenced to having an Apologetic and Debate class. Two of the alpha male children (which would actually be both of my sons), discussed in depth over whether their maternal aunt was both of theirs or just one of theirs. "She's MY aunt," could be heard from one knowledgeable son and then "No, she's MY aunt," was heard from the other equally as smart son. They seemed to finally agree-to-disagree since they both had such fundamentally sound view points. And of course, they were BOTH equally right.

When lunch time rolled around on this particular day, the First Born Son had an idea for lunch. Instead of him just making lunch meat sandwiches, we would both take turns putting ingredients on the bread. He had a regular system designed in his educated head and I believe that some day he just might run his own growing business making gourmet sandwiches in a factory line. Oh wait; I guess Subway already does that. Well, maybe his specialty can be Lots Of Extra Mustard That Oozes Sloppily Down Your Hands And On Your Shirt since that seems to be a popular hit ~~as seen in our laundry pile~~ on the personally created sandwiches this son of mine made.

And so the day continued, one adventure after another.

The end.

Cherishing the Chaos

2010-07-22T13:03:00.006-05:00

For some reason, I always had this lofty idea that being a mom meant reading good quality books to your kids, tucking them in at night with heirloom quilts and admiring their cherubic faces as they slept on soft, fluffy pillows covered in happy colored pillow cases.

What I didn't know was that good quality books quickly turn into well used and over-read-dog-eared-paged stacks of paper that used to be bound in those novel things call "books."

And as for tucking the said kids at night, using heirloom quilts on beds that tend to be frequently washed, is a recipe for extinguishing all heirloom quilts from our generation. Besides, whatever type of blanket or covering you use to tuck your kids in at night with, that article of bed clothing soon takes on an heirloom look with all the washings and forts and tents and tug-a-war games that it ends up being used for.

I never realized how drab looking the brightly colored pillow cases get with many washings. Or the bloody-nose stains that are sure to happen. Or how long it takes for their faces to become cherubic looking after they finally lay their sweet heads on the fluffy pillows. I didn't realize that drinks and bathroom runs and "Mom! I'm scared" and "DAAAAAADDDDDYYYYY! There's a lion in my room" sobs that would trail out the dimly lit bedroom doors long after bedtime. Oh, and the spiders that always appear right at bedtime, right along with those lions.

But the smiles these kids greet you with just after the rising of the sun the next morning, now THAT'S what motherhood is all about. And the hugs and the snuggles. And the "Mom, I wuv you so much!" are the words that put perspective on each trying circumstance that may happen between morning and bedtime.

And someday, I just know, our bookshelves will be lined with pleasantly bound books. And brightly colored pillowcases will grace the heirloom quilted beds. And I'll go to bed at night and my house will be quiet and the chatter and cries from those toy-strewn bedrooms will be silent. No spiders or lions will plague my quiet evening. And I'll be able to relax, put my feet up and not have to endure the endless era of bedtime that used to happen every night.

Then the next morning, I will greet the day alone. Without the heralding laughter of kids and toys and noise and breakfast cereal strewn all over the dining room table.

And I'd give anything to hear the "Mom, I wuv you so much!" tokens of bliss that used to fill my days. Yes, I'd even give up my neatly kept, heirloom-quilted-bedrooms of silence for just one more disruptive and chaotic evening.

Because motherhood ends way too fast.

Finding "The Good Part" In This Pregnancy Sickness

2010-06-22T21:29:00.004-05:00

I feel crabby today. And that's the honest truth.

This all day sickness is old. Nothing tastes good. Everything upsets my stomach. When people post statuses about food (specifically meat) on Facebook, I feel like deleting my account and joining a vegetarian message board where I can hopefully find a safe network of friends.

I hate meat. So if you write a status about meat or post a picture with meat in it. Or even THINK about meat while you're on Facebook, I can sense it. And it makes me do everything in my power to not puke.

Oh and garlic and onions too. They make me so sick.

Today I had an insatiable craving for Triscuit crackers. And my kind husband went to the store to get me some. The only thing wrong that the dear man did, was bring back Roasted Garlic Triscuit crackers instead of plain ones.

He was as shocked as I was that he made that mistake... the poor guy.

To make matters worse, I found out they were Roasted Garlic after Alex ripped the box open and then asked for help to get the bag inside open. It was at that fatal moment that I picked up a savory cracker, put it on my nauseated tongue and crunched the Garlic flavor right out of the cracker.

I no longer crave Triscuits, in case you're wondering.

My belly feels flatter lately too. I easily forget I'm actually pregnant and not suffering from an eternal case of the flu. So I need things to keep perspective. And as is my naturally productive nature (haha!) I took matters into my own hands and decided to be proactive in my attitude...

Here are some things I did today:

Today my sister had an ultrasound of her 20 week baby. And the way she described the activity and movements of her precious baby that they were able to watch on the screen, made me realize that in just 9 weeks, I'll be there too. I have a healthy, active baby bouncing inside my numb uterus, right now as we speak.

I found a website that had a detailed description of what my 11 week baby is doing. The main thing it's improving on right now is it's brain development. Specifically in the nerve cells area. It's making 250,000 new nerve cells every minute. It's no wonder I'm tired and sick and lethargic and forget my train of thought all the time. I'm being more productive in my stationary, lazy position than probably everyone on my block put together.

I watched a short video clip online of a rambunctious 11 week old baby boy. And when I realized I have one of those in me (okay, it may not be a boy... but same idea as far as age of baby, etc), I fell in love all over again with my baby.

And then last but not least, I'm reminded frequently of the mothers around me who have empty arms. Mothers who are supposed to be pregnant right now but no longer are, due to miscarriage. The women around me who want to be mothers but aren't because they can't get pregnant. And I'm sharply reminded of the fact that the precious cargo I carry, is a special blessing that not everyone is able to possess. Who cares if I feel like puking! I have a healthy baby growing bigger everyday inside my nauseated-not-poking-out-that-much-belly.

And that's really all that matters. I'm pregnant. And healthy. And if I feel like puking, well, it's for a very good reason.

On Pregnancy, Perspective and Plans

2010-06-20T21:42:00.006-05:00

11 weeks pregnant and counting. It's been a great ride so far, but quite unpredictable. I have a long mental list of things I want to do, complete, get done, not do, quit doing and stop.

The one thing I'd really like to stop doing is laying on the couch. But no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to beat the addiction. The exhaustion and constant upset stomach keep me stuck to that charming couch.

Basically, each day is a work in progress: Eat. Don't gag. Drink water. Eat again. Repeat. With an over active gag reflux, I tend to quickly un-do all my good even if I feel great. A simple teeth brushing at the end of a really good day, can turn sour, no pun intended.

So, I try to avoid things like too much yogurt on my spoon -- it makes me gag. Or, don't smell things that smell bad. Don't THINK of things that smell bad. Don't LOOK at things that might smell bad. Don't cough a tickle out of my throat. And don't brush my teeth. I'm learning the hard way what to do what not to do. And how many things in life cause gagging.

And I travel on a regular basis... or so it feels. But, tonight brings the closure to our month of travel and I'm home to stay for at least 2 months. Traveling wrecks havoc on an upset stomach but thankfully, the Lord gave me strength and grace to not puke this whole last weekend we were gone! Granted, I got sick and laid on couches and slept in the van while everyone else partied, but hey, I didn't puke. It's funny how quickly your idea of success is altered during life changing times... like pregnancy.

I say all this as a way of recording the turn of events with this pregnancy. With my other babies, I tended to do better at recording my feelings and thoughts but with this one, I'm too distracted.

I've been making a mental list of all the things I want to do as soon as I feel better. For the last month, I've had my sister living here as a nanny to our kiddos, and boy was that great help! I could rest and relax as much as I needed to and I never had to cook. Now that she's gone, it's back to the grind for me.

Laying around and not being able to do much has given me a lot of thinking time. And I've realized how much petty things are important to me. Yes, you read that right. I want to learn to focus on the little moments in life that become life long memories. I want to learn how to make the most out of an ordinary day.

This last month held 2 birthdays in our little family as well as Father's Day. I did nothing special for my man and feel just terrible for that. He didn't comment or put any emphasis on the fact that I acted like his birthday never happened -- he's too nice to complain. But as soon as I'm back up to my normal state of well being, I plan to make a week of surprises for him. Who says you can't celebrate some body's birthday a month later?! I also plan to work on activities with the kids both here at home and away from home. I just feel like their young little lives are getting older and bigger everyday. It's NOW that we can do things they'll look back on and say, "When I was little..."

Some things I want to try my hand at in the next few months (after I get off the couch for good) include but are not limited to:

Finish Potty Training Of The Youngest Child
Teach My Ambitious Son To Read
Try My Hand At French Cooking (I made the mistake of watching Julie and Julia one day)
Get Rid Of Half Our Stuff (at least)
Follow A Daily Schedule
Plan Regular Activities With The Kids
Organize Sewing Stuff (I have 2 dresses to sew for an upcoming wedding)

But as for now, I'm just gonna concentrate on drinking water, eating food, mothering my kids, being a good wife and not gagging. And if I can pull all 5 things off in one day, I'll feel successful and productive.

And while I lay on the couch and dream of sunnier days when I'll have the energy to match my plans, a precious little life grows bigger everyday inside my womb. I'd have to admit that alone makes me successful. And productive.

Pregnancy Poem

2010-05-26T12:51:00.000-05:00

Here I sit alone,
Unheard as I grumble and groan
Retching desires inside my belly
Jiggling like liquidated jelly

The only companion near
Is a little thing so precious and dear
Only a pencil’s lead width wide
Safely in my bosom to hide

Oh dear, how can it truly be
This little thing so tender to me
Can’t even move or try to kick
Yet makes me feel so gross and sick

They say “this too will pass”
But time sure isn’t going fast
Each day anew confirms my fears:
Another day of morning sick years

I want to eat but it can’t be so
For food to me is a sickening foe
The smell of things within my nose
Torments me even when I doze

My fate shall not end in bliss
For even my hubby’s sweetest kiss
Nauseates my starving soul
Makes me dash to the porcelain bowl

I cannot smell or eat or drink
Or wash dishes in the sink
My little kids and darling man
Are tolerating me as best they can

Alas, all this woe will end
And soon my road will take a bend
To sunnier skies and banquets galore
Eating at last will be no chore!

But until my fate ends one day
I must remember to keep at bay
The feelings of pity that keep me low
And make my life seem full of woe

For really the truth must be told:
This sickness insures a definite hold
Of my little one to the vast warm womb
And shields against miscarriage doom

So, I must, I will, I have to get glad!
This sickening belly should not be sad
For soon the end will come with labor pains
And these early days will feel like summer rains!

cjn 8-15-04 7wks. pregnant

This was composed during my 7th week of pregnancy with Janae. I originally posted this on 11-03-06 during my 7th week of pregnancy with Alex. And to keep with that tradition, I'm posting it again during my 7th week of pregnancy with Baby #4. And not just for tradition's sake either. :)

The Tale Of The Farm Fresh Egg

2010-05-13T22:24:00.004-05:00

Today was one of those blog worthy days. And by that I mean it was such a full, ~~fun~~ funny and crazy day that I couldn't even take notes, let alone sit down and blog.

In a nut shell:

The bathroom door got locked with no one inside (not a pleasant thing when you have to go to the bathroom but can't since the door's locked...)

One of our house phones was found outside with a 2-year-old who was apparently ~~calling his therapist~~ enjoying free phone time before he got caught.

A large amount of tinted, scented lip gloss was used as a complete make up -- including cleverly shaped eye brows and eye liner.

2-yr-old would not sleep for his nap.

And I'm not even mentioning what happened yesterday because all I can remember is setting my phone down on a window sill but finding a thick layer of chopped up chap stick instead. And I vaguely have a memory of the mud tracked all over the house because 2 small children went out their bedroom window, walked around in the rain and then came back in. Nor am I remembering how the 2-yr-old unwrapped a package of frozen steaks and set them on the stove at supper time. And the stale, dried jalapeno sandwich I found sitting in the living room next to my antique books also fails my memory.

But today is fresh in my memory. A little too "fresh" actually.

I looked outside just after lunch and spied two young children smearing yellowish-snot-type "stuff" all over the swing set platform.

Resting in a bitter, murderous heap lay a broken egg shell.

Do you know how much TWO small children can do with the contents of ONE egg?

I had no idea the volume that's held in ONE egg. Until today. I will never underestimate the power of a raw egg. Again. Ever. Nor my children's abilities to manifest amazing handiwork with said raw egg.

They got it all over the 3'x4' play set platform.

They got it all over their hands.

They got it up and down the frame of the swing set.

They got it all over the dog's head.

They generously lathered it into their hands.

They got it all over the ground.

And they got it to evenly overflow their palms and fingers and then they raved about how soft their skin felt.

Meanwhile, the dog was ravenously licking the egg as fast as she could as it trailed slowly down from the 4' high platform. Egg snot was literally pouring all over the place out there as it pooled through the cracks in the play set platform.

And it was one egg. ONE.

There was so much of that stuff out there, I finally called out and said, "Hey kids, how many eggs do you have out there anyway?"

"Just one, Mom," they called back from their Omega-fatty-acids-complete-with-high-protein-packed-in-a-fresh-brown-shell play.

My greatest disappointment but yet redeeming factor was that it was a farm fresh egg. You see, I pay for farm fresh eggs because I love eating farm fresh eggs so was disappointed we lost one whole egg to complete ~~experimentation~~ destruction. Yet at the same time, I wasn't worried about salmonella poisoning or other type of bacteria developing on my children's ~~fragile~~ bodies because the egg was farm fresh.

As I was getting a jacket out of my closet a little later today, I noticed crushed, brown egg shells on the carpet by the closet. The closet that is far from the play set where the broken egg play took place. The closet surrounded by carpet. The closet you have to go out of your way just to get to. It too had egg remains by it.

And it reminded me once again to never underestimate the power of a farm fresh egg.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

2010-05-09T07:00:00.002-05:00

So there was this day I woke up and suddenly became a mom. Diapers and laundry and sleepless nights hit me with a fury and I wondered what in the world had happened to cause the earth to quit turning on it's axle. Time didn't necessarily stand still. Rather, time ran on and on into itself and never separated itself with proper punctuation. (Such as rest, sleep, sanity, etc.)

Rather than sitting there in shocked disbelief at the wild fury that clung to my life, I flung myself into the whirling merry-go-round of motherhood and hung on for dear life. Diapers and laundry and sleepless nights all flew around my head in a merry little circle of chaos.

And then it happened. The merry-go-round slowed to a nostalgic carousal trot. A sing-songy tuned played pleasantly in the back of my existence. And I loved and adored and cherished this whole thing called motherhood. Simultaneously, suddenly I was struck with a chance to breath, think, rest, enjoy my life, etc... and etc. My "babies" became toddlers and soon and my toddlers became kids.

And you know what happened next?

I began to wish for the diapers. And that laundry. And those sleepless nights.

What is it about babies that just make us WANT them?

We're looking forward to our new surprise expected to arrive the beginning of January... smack dab in the middle of Cabin Fever Season. (I think I found my own personal cure for that disease... a BABY!)

And we're tickled pink. (or is it blue?)

Why My Life and Blog Don't Seem To Conveniently Mix Anymore

2010-04-27T19:02:00.000-05:00

It is precisely 6:20pm and instead of roasting the pan of taters-n-carrots on the grill like I normally would for our Steak and Spuds supper, I'm baking them in the oven so as to provide blogspot.com undivided attention.

You see, if I turn the grill on, stick the food in and then walk away, I'm liable to start the deck on fire. Again. So, I'll just utilize the oven (that had it's front busted out last May when a large, heavy canister fell from the ceiling, bounced on the floor and ricocheted off the front of the stove which resulted in a generous shower of tiny glass shards) and stay inside so as to give blogspot.com undivided attention.

A tidy line of weeds grows steadily around the landscape blocks in the front yard. The yard I just mowed for the first time this year. But I shall refrain from pulling them (and absorbing the fading VitD3/sunlight) so as to provide blogspot.com undivided attention.

A busy 3-year-old-wanna-be (he's convinced every day that it's his birthday) is entertaining the dog. But I shall neglect the urge to check on him so as to give blogspot.com undivided attention. (just kidding)

Earlier today, I was impressed with all the antics my kids pulled. They provided blogspot.com with a lot of impressive tales... tales that I shall hope I never forget but probably will since I can hardly take one little clever action in before the next little clever action starts. And pretty soon in all the craziness and hubbub that is my life, I just think that my kids will be little and crazy forever and I'll have the rest of my life to write this stuff down ~~for blackmail material~~. But I know that's not true. (at least for the "little" part.... the crazy part will probably only get worse.)

As for today, they took both of my brooms apart and combined the broom handles with a paint roller. Then they went around the house committing nameless acts of unmentionable things to the house and surrounding countryside.

Then they pulled all their camp chairs out and did child-like things with them. Like clutter the house with their intrusive shapes. (I'm referring to the chairs' shapes; not the kids' shapes.)

They also committed unbelievable and terrorist acts to our tiny little garden that's growing peacefully and beautifully in the jiffy pots in our only south facing window. The acts consisted of peony scented linen spray. I couldn't figure out why the house smelled so good and why the tomato plants took on a heavenly fragrance. Ignorance really is bliss, you know.

As the day continued, so did my kids. I overheard Landon acting as a football coach to his sister and hollering at her to do all kinds of things with the football. Only, he didn't call her Janae; he called her Jason.

In the end, I found a baby snake in a 5 gallon bucket in the front yard (the snake I had so kindly caught for the kids to play with while I mowed the yard) and I also found brutally beaten tulips laying in a conspicuous area. (I hope the neighbors won't mind.)

Although today feels unique and original, it really is no match for yesterday. My 5-year-old-daughter (that shall remain nameless) informed me that if I didn't get her coffee at the coffee shop drive through, she would just find another mom who would give her coffee.

Said daughter also managed to return my missed calls on my cell phone, unbeknownst to me.

My 6-year-old has decided it's time for our family to move. He's avidly searching for a new home and commenced doing so yesterday while running errands with his parents.

The wanna-be-3-year-old was certain there were monsters involved with Curious George and informed the nice ladies at the check out of his latest discovery. At the same store, he also attempted to try on some snazzy lady's high heeled sandals and was disappointed when I wouldn't let him.

As each day closes with a blur, I like to think that it was an "overly special" day. But then when I look at the week in retrospect, I'm vividly reminded that when you have a 2-year-old kid who innocently manages to snatch police officers off the street in order to carry on a deep conversation with the uniformed officer, you really shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore.

Like when all the kids disappear because they decided to randomly visit the neighbors just to see what the inside of their house looks like. Or pluck hair out of the guinea pig for no other reason than to hear the creature whistle.

With kids like mine, I think you may understand why and how blogspot.com has not had my undivided attention very well lately. But without such creativeness blooming in my little world, I would never have anything to blog about. Ever.

And since the 3-year-old-wanna-be just disappeared, I should go investigate and see what I can record for next month's blog. (don't hold your breath...)

A New And Exciting Prospect For All My Readers!

2010-03-22T10:30:00.007-05:00

In the spirit of all good things, I'm sharing a profound and amazing deal that I've ~~selfishly~~ absentmindedly been keeping all to myself. It's called: Swagbucks.

I don't just sign up for random web things and I definitely don't promote anything unless I know it to be true or have used it long enough to understand the ropes. Swagbucks is one of those tried-and-true things I've done. And not only am I doing it, but all my friends are too. Well, most of them anyway... obviously, since YOU don't have it, then not all my friends are doing it. Yet. So it comes well recommended by me and most-of-my friends.

Did you know that by just doing what you normally do on the Internet, you could be earning free Amazon gift cards? Yeah, I'm serious. This is not a gimmick.

Did you know that you don't have to give Swagbucks a lot of personal information? They just need your name, email address, country and date of birth. Seriously. Blogger requires more than that, even.

Did you know that it's free? The service is paid for by the competitors who post ads on the Swagbucks site. You will not be spammed or become inflicted by a virus on your computer either. It's 100% safe. And you don't have to agree to anything unless you absolutely want it.

If you don't believe me or still need a little bit more info before signing up, don't feel back: click on the following promotion to learn more. (You can look at it before you sign up.) Believe me, I was very cautious before I took the plunge but after I did it, I couldn't figure out why I hadn't been doing it sooner.

Oh, and one more thing... anyone who may sign up under you on Swagbucks will benefit you as well: you get credits every time they do. Not to put any pressure on you or anything but the same goes for me: everyone who signs up on Swagbucks from my blog, will reward me with credits as well. So we both win!

And if for some reason you never want to cash in your credits, it's not a big deal. The thrill of seeing a random box pop up while you're on the Internet telling you that you won "x-amount of Swagbucks" gives you an adrenaline rush. Seriously. To think people pay MONEY to have so much fun but with Swagbucks, YOU get paid to have the fun yourself. It's like a computer game only you don't have to feel bad for wasting time. Swagbucks makes all your time on the Internet fun. Even if you are simply researching diapers. Or Recipes. Or checking the weather.

Just go to Swagbucks now and see what you think!

Polk-a-dot Painting Project

2010-03-17T12:00:00.022-05:00

I love painting. I love polk-a-dots. And I love my kids. Not in that order (most days) but you know what I mean.

So one day I decided to combine all three.

And my kids were thrilled.

We laid newspaper on the floor to make it look like we were taking cautionary preventative measures and actually serious about only getting paint on the walls.

Then we put on paint clothes, selected some brushes and began to splash colorful and bright dots on our family room wall.

Amazingly, the paint only went from their little red cups, to their brushes, to the walls. I was very pleased with their "carefullness" and it made me realize that little projects like this, not only showed me what my kids were capable of being responsible for but also showed my kids what they could be trusted with when they can prove their responsibility.

Everyone had their designated circles. And I had the honors of cleaning up edges and reaching the high polk-a-dots.

The results were better than I expected, which was a good thing since I had my "I'm Blogging This" shirt on. It inspired me to make a blog post out of our project. And even more so since I love our polk-a-dot wall. But, my favorite part about it is that someday when my kids are old and they have kids of their own, they'll be able to say, "When I was a kid, my mom let me paint polk-a-dots on a wall in our house... what was she thinking?!"

It makes me smile every time I walk through our family room.

And not only does it look fun and happy, it was a fun and happy project to do. With my kids.

Yeah, I could've gotten it done twice as fast by myself without their "help." And maybe wouldn't have had to touch up so many spots.

But I wouldn't have the sweet memory of it had I crammed them off to their rooms and told them to not touch mommy's paint.

Polk-a-dots are supposed to be fun, right?! And these definitely were.

When I see the fun polk-a-dots dancing on our family room wall, I don't even think about the fact that I let my kindergartners get in close range to our new couch and brand new carpet with wet, live paint. Instead, the memories of our fun polk-a-dot project, are timeless. And sweet.

That's the way polk-a-dots are supposed to be. And raising kids is supposed to be that way too.

They're Only Kids Once

2010-03-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I look at my kids and wonder.... how did you become mine? Who are you? What will you become someday? Is your childhood going to be one filled with good memories or will it be a passing phrase in time that you were glad to see go?

I wonder: am I cherishing each day? Living it to the fullest? Are my priorities righted? Do I have a vision of the future? Of hope? Of my children's lives?

Often I think about the fact that I wanted to grow up, get married and have kids. I did all that. And now that I'm in the "have kids" era, it's no longer about me. Now my kids have their own goals. Their own lives. Their own thoughts and desires. Their own "when-I-grow-up-I-want..." dreams and plans. This is IT for them. This is the real thing. It's not all about me living the life I always wanted anymore; it's about them being shaped for adulthood.

It's not possible to push a "record" button when we go to the zoo or park or have a birthday party and know that only what's played out during that time will be recorded as a keepsake childhood memory. The "record" button is not optional: it's down all the time. I can't "stop" the tape. The days I'm tired or distracted or preoccupied with my own things, are days their childhood memories are being made.

Each day is another chance for adventure. Another page in their life story. Another captured time in memory that they'll pull their childhood recollections from. What happens TODAY will hopefully cause nostalgia for them in twenty years.

I hope and pray their quickly-fleeting-childhoods will be but a bright spot in their lives, filled with direction, hope, bliss and love that shaped their perspective for the promising future.

Because nothing is quite as good as it was when you were a kid. And I'm making that count, today.

In Which She Learns Contentment

2010-02-28T15:15:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a blur. A day in which I can barely remember anything.

And what I do remember, is not good.

It started out smartly enough though. The kids had breakfast and more food went into their mouths than on the floor. That's a good start right there. I guess I was fooled into thinking that it was going to be a "good" day as indicated by breakfast's success. How wrong I was.

I was feeling nostalgic as I sipped my chai and had the I-want-to-have-another-baby-now syndrome. Feelings of "why can't I have one NOW?" crowded my thoughts and I felt discontent. Which is not good because from my experience, if a person can't be content with what they HAVE, they'll never be content when they get what they WANT because there's always something else to have. To want. To get. To be. To go after. And the pursuit of contentment is usually the last thing on the list of those kinds of people. Actually, I don't think it's even on their list at all, come to think of it.

So I purposed to work on this lacking attitude in my heart and went on with my day.

As I entertained a phone call from a dear friend who also has small children of her own, I observed out of the corner of my eye a young, wedding-dress-clad (her daily attire of choice) female child flitting quickly to the bathroom with blue hands. Very blue hands. Very blue as in dripping-with-blue hands.

Blue was quickly covering the entire bathroom sink, that's how blue her hands were.

I composed my dignity on the phone and flew on 2 quick-footed-feet to the place where the blue was sure to have come from: the basement.

The Blue Source was no where to be found. And at that point I began to panic and immediately got off the phone. Just then, I found an opened can of Blue Stuff sitting on the the Little Tykes table in Janae's cute little room. Basically, the Blue Stuff was only about twenty-four-inches off of the brand new carpet in Janae's cute room.

And through sovereign and spiritual intervention which I have yet to understand, there was no Blue Stuff dotting or trailing anywhere out of that can of paint; except on the hands of my wedding-dress-clad female child. Who was at that moment getting paint all over the bathroom sink. But the walls, carpet, doors, furniture, siblings, pets, food, shoes, hair, etc., were all Blue Stuff Free.

As I gathered the screwdrivers sitting next to the Blue Stuff that had been used by my clever daughter to pry the lid off the paint can, I quickly put the paint away and scampered back upstairs. In the process of that I spied a piece of glass on the floor that was apparently lonely and waiting for the trash can.

Thinking it to be a wise time to return the call to my dear mother-in-law who had called (as indicated by my caller ID) during the last catastrophe and phone call (it's funny how often catastrophes and phone calls are simultaneously played out), I picked up the phone and dialed the number.

By that point, the bathroom was vacant of the female child and in her place stood a swimming-trunk-clad-male child wearing inter tubes and other fancy swimming paraphernalia. He was just getting in the rapidly filling-with-water tub and looked at me as if I lost my mind when I asked him what he thought he was doing... "Swimming, Mom."

I made a mental note to black-magic-marker "No Swimming Allowed" on the side of the tub but decided it would be futile since the swimming inclined members of our household are yet a little uneducated in the reading department.

Comforting myself that the kid wasn't drowning, wasn't splashing water, wasn't eating soap, wasn't using soap, wasn't wasting soap and wasn't cutting himself with a razor, I ignored the impulse to remove him from the tub. I just did the Bug Eyes Out And Sigh And Say Okay thing.

As I nonchalantly chatted with the grandmother of my adventurous children and listened to her laugh at their antics as I dialogued them through the phone to her, it became too much to stay on the phone and have a swimming child in the bathtub when I observed that my computer had been sabotaged. So I got off the phone and reclaimed rightful ownership of my computer.

But I couldn't reclaim proper function of my computer. Everything was messed up. Caps Lock ON made the letters lowercase and every time I clicked something, a whole new page opened. Hoping my computer-sabotaging child hadn't done merciless and embarrassing things on my Facebook page that had been left open, I was relieved to find that my profile indicated no suspicious activity.

My senses slowly began to feel more sensitive at this point and I could no longer see the value of swimming in the bathtub so I ordered the swimming child out. As those events began to wrap up in the bathroom, I came upon my self-motivated, fully clothed two-year-old who was actively scrubbing the top, front portion of his hair. With shampoo and no water. Unable to rinse him right then, I sent him to the basement to do something like normal kids do. You know, play with toys. How novel would that be? I wondered out loud.

I followed him down later to check on him and found another piece of glass on the floor. I also found a thickly-carpeted-with-legos family room floor. And I also found my cell phone breaking the "Keep Out Of Reach Of Children" rule. I picked it up and checked the call log, making sure none of my children had contacted the police for anything again. Thankfully, the only call they placed was to a Calling Card. At least they hadn't continued on to an international call, I comforted myself with.

I scooped up the Shampooed Head Kid and brought him into the kitchen. I flipped on the water only to send the faucet handle flying. Another indication that our kitchen sink faucet needs to be replaced. NOT fixed: replaced. It's beyond repair; it's been fixed enough times. It needs a complete replacement. (Did you get that yet?)

So since the regular water was inaccessible due to maintenance deficiencies (I didn't marry a plumber), I used the next best option and stuck my child's head under the drinking water faucet which has only one temperature: Refreshingly Cool. He fussed and fumed but I comforted myself with the fact that the next option would've been snow. And the next option after that would've been to just leave the shampoo on his head until his next bath which would probably be who-knows-when. So I was actually being a kind mother and washing the soap out of his hair humanely. Even if the water was cold.

The day continued on in much of the same manner.

3 small children left the house in no coats while wearing their parents' shoes.

Mysterious messes appeared in random places.

My leather shoes were shuffled through mud puddles on trips to the trash can by feet much too small to fit a women's size 8 1/2 shoe.

Mud bricks appeared in neat stacks on the front step outside. (At least they were outside and not inside.)

Streaks of mud and dirt covered both sides of the front door, implying that a mud-covered-child had entered and exited the premises. And probably entered again and was likely roaming free inside the house with mud covered hands.

Legos were generously scattered all over the floor on a regular basis all. day. long.

By nap time, I was so exhausted but had already psyched myself up for a new laundry room so ignored the impulse to snooze while two-thirds of my children contentedly slept in well contained beds.

And by the time the day was done, I had ordered pizza for supper, cleaned the basement, arranged the laundry room and visited a close friend who had just had a baby earlier this week.

As I gazed at the perfect, adorable, sleeping face of the tiny baby girl who fit snugly in my arms, I was half tempted to sneak the baby home in my purse. I had come under the baby spell again and just really wanted another child - especially since my own baby will be THREE in a few months.

Need I remind myself that when my oldest child turned three, I was just weeks away from delivering my third child? Now Alex, my youngest, is that age and... well, it just feels weird.

But, after I got home and happened to spy a spot of Blue Stuff on the bathroom light switch, indicating that my wedding-dress-clad-female-child-with-blue-hands HAD touched something other than just the bathroom sink earlier that day, it triggered something deep inside.

And it reminded me again of my three healthy, adventurous, live-life-to-the-fullest kids. And it made me instinctively sigh with contentment that I have the kids I have and that I only have three of them.

Another Winter Weather Rant

2010-02-18T07:00:00.001-06:00

It had been three days since it quit snowing. THREE WHOLE DAYS. The sun had come out and shone brightly on the winter wonderland all around and the wind had calmed down.

But, guess what? There was still snow on the roads.

Like any logical person, I had stayed in out of the weather and waited the snow storm out. I ignored the impulse to get my shopping done. I pushed everything that involved something outside my front door to the very end of the list. Like a good citizen, I stayed in out of the cold. Off the roads. Out of the 40mph wind gusts.

I gave the salt trucks, the snow plows and the snow, plenty of time to get their duties done. I even ordered boots online so I wouldn't have to go out in the bad weather in order to find necessary condiments for the bad weather.

Then, a whole THREE days after the snow quit, I finally peeked out from under the blanket of snow my house was buried in. I dug my van out of a snow drift, brushed off the windshield and then made a wise decision to get to the gas station first off, making sure to fill my gas tank full before embarking on some necessary shopping.

I slipped and slid the whole way there.

I chalked it up to the fact that perhaps I drove on the one and only bad road in town. And that road just happened to lead all the way from my driveway to that gas station.

After filling up on gas, I poked carefully out of the gas station parking lot careening my vehicle gracefully over the packed snow and iced over road. Trying not to be ungrateful for the non-working snow workers, I ignored the fact the road I was driving on was a well traveled high way.
I made my way to the the interstate and found it was clear and dry. Thankful my speedometer could safely match the posted speed limit signs, I assumed the rest of the roads would be safe from then on.

Since I was shopping in our state's capital, I just knew the big city would be clear and clean of snow and ice. I braked carefully, just to be safe, as I veered off the highway and on to the exit ramp. I was surprised snow and ice on that exit matched the small city roads I had just come from but figured that the particular patch of asphalt and concrete I was driving on, had taken a rare but direct hit from The Arctic Blast.

Downtown was even worse. I happened to trigger every red light I came close to and found my anti-lock brakes became quite efficient as I slid to a stop each time. The vehicles next to me became uncomfortably close one too many times as the tires of my vehicle spun out when the lights turned green and I slid to the sides as the tires gained traction.

(repeat above scene several times.)

Suddenly, I was stricken with an island feeling of, oh no! I'm surrounding by a sea of snow and ice and dry land is far, far away! I almost turned back because THREE days after the last of the snow had fallen, the roads were STILL bad. But I braved the treacherous roads as I was determined to make the best of the gas I had just put in my van.

All through the bustling, busy city, I careened and slid and swerved. Trucks, plows and other defenders of snow-stricken drivers were unseen on the roads I traveled. I thought it was funny that posted above one of the main thoroughfares through town, a brightly lit sign flashed an alert,

"Hazardous Winter Roads"

And I wondered if the effort and money and time could be put into telling us all what we already know, then why couldn't the same effort and money and time be put into something we'd also really like to know: CLEAN ROADS.

Weather is a slave to no man and all of humanity has found itself prey to it's vengeance at some point or another. And when it comes to winter, I should really be used to it because I am from the North. I come from The Place where snow and winter and ice are a constant companion that accompany the months of November to April. And it's okay. People's lives don't shut down just because an inch of snow fell during the night. "Don't cha knowah way up Nort der" they don't get a "Winter Weather Advisory" all because 2 inches of snow is predicted.

But, here in the not-quite-south-but-definitely-not-north (aka: Nebraska), I just really don't like winter. Or the roads. Or the snow. Or the ice. When the society in general is not equipped to handle snow, ice and winter, this weather can be hazardous both outside (bad roads) and inside (Cabin Fever.)

Because even when the wind dies down and the Nebraska prairie lies calm and placid, the ice still sticks to the free-ways and one of the main arteries of civilization and industry (aka: Lincoln, NE) still lies dormant under unsalted ice.

Give me Spring. Or give me the North.

A Blog In Which She Blogs About Why She Rarely Blogs Anymore

2010-02-16T20:30:00.003-06:00

(How's that for a run-on-words-title?)

I've been on a blog strike. I know. It's bad. Don't be fooled by the blogs I posted last week; most of them were drafts that'd been stored up for weeks but never seemed to arrive at a punch line until I stripped my brain down and just focused on getting a blog done for once. Just to prove it, this blog was started over a month ago. Yeah... it's taken that long to get a simple blog post done.

So in a desperate attempt to break out of the "I-can't-think-of-anything-to-blog-about-mode" I decided to just come right out and blog about why I've been in a blogging slump.

I calmly click the little "home" icon on my computer. Up flashes my "home" page. (Weird how that works, huh?)

And then I click "My account" and suddenly my eyes blink onto a bunch of hyperlinked options. I select "Blogger" of all things and merely zoom off to Blog spot. Now that I'm here, what was I supposed to be doing? Oh yeah, blogging.

What a novel thought.

Now for the blog...

Normally people blog about things that are on their mind. You know, weighty matters, light-hearted fun or photo tutorials. Some people even blog about their pets or politics. And their projects. Others blog about their kids and husbands (ahem). Pretty much, if it's on your mind and you've self-assigned yourself the title of "Blogger" you can write about anything you want.

Right?

Um, wrong.

Okay, maybe you can write about it but sometimes what's most on my mind, is unspeakable.

(If this isn't making sense, you're welcome to click "Next Blog" at the top of this page or utilize the little red box with the white "x" in it up in the right hand corner. But before you decide, let me tell you that I think this post just might end up being a perfect illustration as to why THIS blogger hasn't been too busy on her blog in the last year. So if you care to know, read on. If not, I completely understand and won't even know that you didn't actually read this whole post.)

Sometimes I visit nice blogs and the blogger seems to have plethora of good experiences, happy days, perfect lives and no tears. They never make mistakes and if they do, they don't cry themselves to sleep over them. Or at least they don't say so on their blog.

I hate those kinds of blogs. They irk me. Irritate me. And make me think that the blogger is either the one and only person with a perfect life who has everything figured out OR they're totally faking it.

I mean seriously... HOW do some of these homeschooling stay-at-home moms do it and get everything done? I'm lucky to get the laundry sorted, let alone create a crafty masterpiece to set on the dining room table, complete with a photo tutorial detailing everything.

And then I realized that I do the very thing I hate seeing in other bloggers. I only let the good things in my life come out on my blog. I only write about what's safe. What's decent. What's funny. And cute. I'm not open about my bad days. Or how hard life has been. Or what I've been learning in the "trials and tribulations" category.

But, now I understand those Always Have Everything Put Together Kind Of People. They may NOT have it all together but because the World Wide Web can be such a heartless place of cruelty and criticism (like I was doing to their perfect blogs), they're limited to only portraying the things in their life that won't be cut apart and criticized.

It reminds me of my days on the farm when I'd watch chickens in their pen. If one chicken had a sore, the other chickens all picked at it until it was a bigger sore. And then finally, the injured chicken would become a victim of what was a little scab at one time. And, because all the other chickens had made the scab become an infected, oozing sore that could possibly monopolize the whole flock because of the bacteria that could freely grow in the infested sore, the injured chicken shriveled to just a little pile of bones and feathers. All because of a little sore.

People on the internet are no different. And when a blogger has a "sore subject" that they could blog about, they're better off hiding it and only showing their good side to the rest of the ~~chickens~~ people on the internet. Because that sore subject could become a big, oozing topic that would leak infection over the entire blog and soon they'd either have to shut their blog down for the sake of saving some of their dignity or avail themselves to even more pecking and picking apart.

So in a nut-shell, I realized that according to my blog, I am also one of the Always Have Everything Put Together Kind Of People. And that makes me feel so accomplished today and that at least I'm doing something right. Ha.

Now to further the topic at hand of what's distracting this once-avid-blogger, I'm just wondering if you've ever had a time in your life when your mind pounded with loud, piercing thoughts? Okay, I guess I can't see a show of hands through my computer screen even if you are raising yours so I'll just branch off here and tell you that I have had a time in my life when my mind pounded with loud, piercing thoughts.

For me, it usually happens before or after something big has taken place or somewhere in the middle. And when this Big Thing has happened or is almost happening or is in the middle of happening, I get the Loud Piercing Thoughts Pounding In My Mind experience when I'm alone.

Me being alone is a rare thing these day but I've pretty much figured out that it happens in two different ways.

Way #1: Driving Alone. Which has honestly been all of maybe three times in recent months.

Way #2: Morning Shower. Which has honestly been a daily routine for, well... a long time.

I guess these two times are pretty much the only two times that reality isn't running to me with bloody mouths, head bumps and small objects up their nose. (By "reality" I mean my kids, in case you couldn't tell.)

I noticed one day as I drove down the road all alone, the thoughts, the heavy heart and the swirling questions floating around my van got to be too much. So I turned on the radio. I don't know what was on... news maybe? And it distracted me from thinking and it all felt quiet again even though the sound of the radio filled my vehicle. It's weird how sometimes your mind all by itself can be louder than anything that comes through your ears.

Sometimes when I do stop and think and allow my mind to digest and develop patterns, solutions and ideas, it all starts to look like one big, jumbled ball of yarn and for some reason, it looks too exhausting to untangle it all. The act of thinking only ends up hurting since the thoughts pound harder and harder until pretty soon I feel like my whole head is filled with a screaming white noise that I can't shut off because my brain just simply isn't wired to STOP thinking.

So then I just want to take the Yarn Ball and throw it out the vehicle window as I drive or wash it down the shower drain if I'm showering. Or simply spend time with my kids or husband or help a friend move. Anything to distract my mind from thinking.

Sometimes I wonder where this complexity of life comes from. What it is that makes me react in a I-wish-I-could-shut-my-brain-off-kind-of-way. But then I realize: it happens when something changes.

Change is the culprit of so many things. Change in a good way; change in a bad way. Happy change. Sad change.

Usually life is filled with a balanced mixture of many things and not one ingredient tends to over-ride the whole picture. But when one ingredient overpowers the other additives to life, pretty soon you feel like Chocolate Chip Cookies that have 10 parts baking soda to 1 part flour and no chocolate chips. Yeah, life can be that unbalanced and complicated sometimes.

And that's the way it's been for this blogger on the other side of your screen.

I've had to learn the hard way what I think. What I believe. And what I know. It's made me stop and think about what matters. What life is all about. What the Bible really says. And what my goals should be.

At the end of it all, I come away with a resolved confidence to find The Truth. To know God's plan. And hear God's heart.

Because the one thing I've learned this past year is that God always answers prayer. Though He's rarely early and never late, He's always on time.

And that's something that never changes.

On Math and Cabin Fever and Why They Go Together

2010-02-06T08:18:00.001-06:00

I finally figured out why God created cold season and winter to happen at the same time: sick kids tend to be less active. Which greatly reduces unnecessary indoor activity when everyone is already cooped up with Cabin Fever because the winter storms outside rage with such a fury, no one can even go out and get their mail for days. Okay, so it's not that bad but it practically could be.

But, when everyone is sick, it doesn't matter that we all have Cabin Fever: we just want to lay around all day anyway. Problem is, we've had a pretty healthy winter this year.

So I got the cold and winter season thing figured out, but now I can't figure out why God didn't make Spring to come say, February 6 instead of March 21. Seriously. WHY does winter get another TWO whole months (or how ever many months there are between February and March) of time in our neighborhood?

To pass time, Landon has come up with a new topic in his conversation. It's called Math. Yeah, you heard that right.

Do I look like a Math geek? I hope not because I'd be a total facade if that were the case.

Math was that one topic in school I got the most trouble over. I even lied over it. Seriously. I don't know why God invented math because the fact is, the invention of math created many more sins for people to commit and fall into. Namely lying. Since math was created, that was the ONE thing I lied about as a child. I was not a lying person even as a little child but when it came to math, it was already so evil anyway that what was a lie or two along with it? Anyway, in case my mom has already forgotten about this particular story, I'll just move on from these vague details and you can pretend I never brought up the math topic. Or how it involved me lying.

Back to Landon and math, every few minutes I hear questions like this....

"How much is sixty-sixty plus one?"

It can be in the middle of supper. Or while we do chores. Or during school. Pretty much, if he's awake, he's asking the answer to another sum.

Sometimes he gets even fancier and will ask, "What's two hundred plus sixty-seven plus ten?"

And then randomly, he'll hold up two fingers on one hand and five fingers on the other hand. A light will go off in his head and he'll day, "TWO plus FIVE is SEVEN?!"

Yeah Landon, that's seven.

Eventually, Alex and Janae joined into it. And I'll hear my 2-year-old come up with a math question. The kid can't even pee in the toilet yet but he'll know his math facts before Winter is up... if Winter ever is up.

Speaking of peeing in the toilet (sorry for being so crude in my language but seriously, we all do it, right? I hope so....), Landon and Janae have taken on a new task. They decided it was time to potty train Alex.

After watching a Potty Training DVD that came in our Huggies box of diapers, they came up with a plan. Randomly, they make Alex sit on the potty chair and he's required to sit there until he produces some evidence that he's being potty trained. They'll both sit on the floor next to Alex and they'll be heard reading books and talking about how Alex should really pee and poop in the potty chair from now on.

When Alex finally squeezes out even the faintness amount of evidence in the chair, Landon and Janae become elated. And then there's a piece of candy for everyone (actually, it's not actually candy but they don't know that) and we all go back to our day.

Several hours later (usually after Alex has had a soiled diaper), The Experts take him back to the bathroom and they repeat the above scene.

They've become so confident in getting him trained that Landon has decided to change Alex's diapers... which I think was influenced when I decided to get tractor-decorated-pull-ups instead of diapers for our soon-to-be-potty-trained boy.

But what really took the cake was when we were packing for our end-of-January-Christmas-trip-to-Wisconsin and Janae informed me of a necessary piece of luggage: The Potty Chair. "The movie said that even when you go on a trip, you hafta take the potty chair," she condescendingly told me.

Winter is doing strange things to my kids. Since when does a 4-yr-old tell their mother what necessary paraphernalia must come along on a trip so the aspiring-to-be-potty-trained 2-yr-old can keep up with his random potty training lessons?

And since when does a 5-yr-old quiz his math-illiterate-mother on math all day long?

I know when: when Cabin Fever strikes and all the kids are healthy. And all they can think about is potty training and math. That's when.

Random Things I Tell My Kids

2010-02-04T11:54:00.001-06:00

"Yes, we'll still be your mom and dad when you have kids someday."

"No Alex, you may not curl your hair."

"Watch where you're peeing."

"No, you may not put your finger in my nose."

"No, I don't want you to stand on those books."

"Hey! WHAT are you pounding into the wall?"

"Stop peeling paint off the walls."

"Why do you keep calling your brother 'kid'?"

"Do you plan on tying those ropes around your neck? Because that would not be a good idea."

"Are you TRYING to break that laundry basket or is it just breaking by itself?"

"Um, no... you don't pull him down the steps in that laundry basket."

"Hey, why doesn't the 't' key on the computer work anymore?" (Landon: What's a 't'?)

"Are you TRYING to break that couch?"

"WHY is that leg off the table?" (Landon: I don't know... it just fell off.)

"Stop flipping that table over; it's not supposed to be like that."

"Isn't that like the second time he fell down the stairs in the last ten minutes?" (Landon: No, he fell down twice.)

"Do you guys plan on taking ALL the furniture apart in our house?"

"Get the oranges off the toilet."

"You don't need to eat in the bathroom; that's what the dining room table is for."

"Don't bite that chair."

"WHO broke this?!"

"Just because you can reach something, doesn't mean you can wreck it."

"Are you TRYING to break that window blind?"

"No... STOP cutting the table!"

"Wash your hands with soap AND water!"

"Watch out for that floor: it'll jump up and hit you right in the face."

The Day I Agreed With My Husband 100%

2010-02-02T11:30:00.003-06:00

I love my husband. I really, really do. He's the man I always dreamed I'd marry so it's no wonder that when I finally met him, I married him just four months later. What was there to wait for any longer? He was everything I prayed for, dreamed of and wanted. And more.

"And More" is right. Yesterday was one of those "And More" days.

After being out of town for 8 days, our house was narrowed down to just a few items in the fridge. The milk was sour. The eggs were all gone except for one. A few pieces of dry bread sat shriveling up in their bag. And the kids were hungry.

My dear husband, who was in the middle of business catch-up after being out of the office for 8 days and came home to find his office work in as good-of-shape as my refrigerator was in, offered to let me run to the local grocery store while he "watched" the kids.

"Watched" is right. (Emphasis on the quotation marks.)

I was grateful to run by myself and thanked him for "watching" the kids. The errand was done in less than 20 minutes and I was soon home, happily re-stocking our Mother Hubbard kitchen.

As I scurried around rummaging up lunch and getting the kids ready to eat, they kept mentioning "putting food away" and "getting food out" and other words that related to the food topic. Confused by what they meant, I just chalked it up to some imaginary play that they had perhaps participated in while I was gone.

But then Landon handed me a half-chewed-up bag of brown sugar and informed me Alex was eating it but Daddy told him to stop.

"Oh, it's "just" a bag of sugar," I thought... trying not to expect the worst. I had accomplished so much in that 20 minutes and I didn't want to think that those darling kids really could've un-done THAT MUCH stuff, could've they??

And then I went downstairs and found that it was not imaginary play my kids had innocently participated in. This was the real thing.

An impressive pile of food sat on the sewing cabinet in the family room, indicating where the half-chewed bag of brown sugar had come from. Originally, the food had been stored on a shelf right behind Toby's desk so I was amused at how the kids must've pulled this off, considering their dad had been sitting there the whole time.

Of course he could've gone upstairs to the bathroom for a few minutes. Or ran out to the mailbox for a few minutes. Or dug in a desk drawer for a few minutes. Or stared at the wall for a few minutes. Or fallen asleep for a few minutes. Or had an out-of-body experience for a few minutes. Or had a bag pulled over his head for a few minutes. Or.... the possibilities were endless.

~~Keeping an aroma of calmness and meekness and sobriety~~ Trying to be understanding, I questioned my husband about this dilemma between his business phone calls. The amazing man he is, he maintained a level of confusion and shock at the situation involving the whole kids-got-into-the-food ordeal and then mentioned to the kids that they shouldn't play with food. He then went back to his office work.

As I stood there, trying to mentally picture HOW three kids could haul food right past their daddy and pile it out in the family room which just happened to be a straight shot from where he sat, I couldn't come up with any reasonable reason as to how it happened.

I wandered back out to the family room still shaking my head. Just then, I happened to spy another food item off in Janae's room. It led me to a whole new stash of food that had been piled very generously under Janae's bed. I had no idea what she planned to do with 10# of beans or a 5# bag of flower or a can of spaghetti sauce or a container of dried parsley, just to name a few of the food items I found. And since I never send her to bed hungry, I really couldn't understand WHY the food had a reason to be in HER room and under the BED.

It took me several loads to get the food back to it's shelf in our basement pantry and I tried to visualize how THREE small kids could lug all this past their Daddy and go unsuspected. I mean seriously: how DOES a 50# kid carry 10# bag of beans without being noticed? That would be like me carrying... oh, never mind.

When I asked Toby about it again, he informed me that he does not look at the kids every time they walk past his desk. And I agreed with him. 100%.

A little later, I found another pile of food under Alex's crib. Wondering if I'd ever stop finding stashes of food, it dawned on me that the amount of all the food piled together was equivalent to what I had bought at the store earlier that day.

Our entire "Seasonings and Herbs" section had been re-stocked in the kids' rooms. Several bags of flour had been strewn about. Rice, beans, sugar and glass cans of spaghetti sauce sat in random places. Even a can of peas had been taken along with a tub of lard.

And all while the Man Of My Dreams who has given me three, adorable, sweet, children, calmly sat in the midst of it all like a big oak tree in the summer sun.

As I reorganized the shelves of food and put everything back in it's place, I was strangely impressed with my children's ability to sweep through the pantry like a tornado and spread food all over the basement all while their unsuspecting dad focused on his work and made phone calls and planned work-related schedules AND "watched" kids while all I did was run to the grocery store. It made me wonder what else the four of them could be capable of.

Later, I had to run over to a friend's house. It ended up being a little longer errand this time so with resolved trepidation, I gingerly crept back down stairs after I got home. I came down just in time to find Alex tight-rope-walking down the length of the floor lamp that was soundly laying on the floor... broken in two.

Toby's reason this time? "Even if I was sitting right next to them, they'd still do stuff like that."

And I had to agree with him. 100%.

On Unplanned Mornings, Unpredictable Kids and How They Go Together

2010-01-14T09:38:00.006-06:00

It's one of those days where I actually got a really good night's sleep, woke up refreshed and ready to start my day AND I woke up early. While getting ready to shower, my perfect morning routine was interrupted by the sounds of healthy, energetic children.

"At THIS hour?!" I wailed. Here I thought I'd beat them to the day and actually have my Bible reading done, coffee made, shower over and be fully dressed with breakfast on the table before their smiling faces graced our morning.

But, nope.

As I showered and dressed and did my usual morning bathroom routine, I could hear ~~shouts and wails and rude talking~~ loud activity. All indicating that a nice, quiet time out in the living room was not what I should expect with my Bible reading for this morning.

The noise and ~~chaos~~ liveliness continued as I put on a pot of coffee. And it was then brought to my attention that not only had ~~this rowdy bunch of hoodlums~~ my darling children already eaten breakfast but they had eaten their cereal out of dirty bowls from the half-loaded dishwasher. I didn't even want to think about where those bowls had been before my kids used. You see, we've been hosting our dog during the sub-zero evenings in a tight confinement area in our house and in a desperate-last-minute-attempt to give her water, I was lazily using our cereal bowls. (Mental note: Children and dogs should not share the same dinnerware. Ever.)

Turns out, the whole breakfast mix-up was one of those dad-thought-mom-had-the-kids-and-mom-thought-dad-had-the-kids mornings. So we made up a new house rule on the spot:

"Don't Come Upstairs And Eat Breakfast Without Mom And Dad."

The ~~arguing and bickering~~ energetic talking continued so I sent one child down to get dressed. While that child went conveniently missing from the great upstairs, I happened to find a soggy bowl of half eating cereal in a cupboard door. Of course, the remaining child upstairs assured me that the person that did that was indeed his sister and not him.

Mentally crossing "Breakfast" off my list, I went on to the next thing. The aroma drifted off the pot of coffee brewing in the coffee maker and I thought it would probably be a good morning after all.

Suddenly, one of the already-had-eaten-breakfast-children decided they were tremendously hungry. They wondered why I never fed them supper and why they couldn't have breakfast. Kids have an amazing way of heaping guilt on even the best-intention-driven mother but I didn't entertain it for a second. Assuring them they HAD eaten supper last night and that they HAD already had breakfast for the day (as evident by the bowl of milk in the cupboard), I reminded them of another house rule:

"Once You Get Up From The Table, Your Meal Is Done."

Of course, she was starving and would probably die before lunch time and she never gets food and... etc. But, since she had decided to get her own breakfast and then she had decided to get up from the table, it really wasn't my fault she was "starving."

I poured myself a cup of coffee and found a quiet spot in the living room. Too distracted by children to make a profitable attempt at reading my Bible, I decided to just read the Proverb for the day. That seemed like a good place to sponge my mind off of. I always find the Proverbs to have meaningful yet short lessons to glean from. And then it sticks with me through the day... which is a good thing, of course.

A few verses jumped out at me in the middle of all my jumping up from the chair to rescue children, wipe noses, put CD's in for a ballerina-wanna-be-child, re-fill my coffee, put snow boots on a pajama clad boy who was wearing a leather vest and fireman helmet, settle disputes and end arguments about who should get the blue pieces to the "Trouble" game going on in the living room.

Proverbs 14:22:

"Do not those who plot evil go astray?

But those who plan what is good

find love and faithfulness."

It just seemed like a good verse to apply to my day. The morning was still young, the sun was brightly shining, my day was like a clean slate and there was a list of possibilities over what I could plan to fill my day.

"But those who plan what is good find LOVE and FAITHFULNESS."

It was just what I needed to know how to plan my day. And I was suddenly glad my kids had disrupted my pre-conceived idea over how I had previously wanted to start my day.

And so I march on finding love and faithfulness because I'm reminded of another verse that says something about "choosing that 'Good Part' because it will not be taken away from me."

In Which I Go on a Selfish Rant About Winter....

2010-01-09T22:00:00.002-06:00

So there's this illness going around. And it's quite a doozy. Worse one of the season. If you haven't gotten it yet, by all means, stay away from us.

The disease I speak of is Cabin Fever.

Now, some people think Cabin Fever is a mental illness. Actually, it really can be. People inflicted with this virus have weird tendencies to do random things like go to the Post Office on The Day of the blizzard, stamp all 121 belated Christmas Cards at the Post Office and just feel all happy inside to be around other people with two legs and two arms. (Not that people don't normally come with two legs and two arms; it's just when you sit at home all day for ~~days~~ weeks on end, you begin to wonder if only snow plows and mail carrier vehicles make up for the entire population outside your front door.) It gives one a "community" feel that you don't otherwise get sitting in your house at home alone while the snow and wind blow -40 wind chills across your town.

Other people think Cabin Fever is just a state of the mind. Like one of those "I-choose-to-be-sad-or-happy-today" kinds of illnesses. If that were the case, I would so not have Cabin Fever because the funny thing is, I choose everyday to be happy. But it's just not working.

Today I was talking to my mom on the phone who happened to be traipsing across the northern part of Wisconsin this weekend. You know, that part on our planet where it's always just COLD? Yeah, the snowy north woods. Anyway, the dear woman sympathized with my complaints about having Cabin Fever (like SHE would know; she was out gallavanting about!) but she assured me, "Oh you wouldn't want to be here right now; we had 22 below zero last night and today only got up to 14* above zero!"

I responded, "Well, that sounds great. We had -27 last night and the highest we got today was -2."

"Oh," was all she said.

Yeah, tell me about it.

Thing is, I was born and bred in this kind of weather: my birthday is in July... you do the math. (Oh dear, where did that come from?) So I have no problem dealing with this kind of climate, right?

Anyway, my point is, from October to June in Wisconsin, we just planned on cold weather. We didn't fight it. We didn't hate it. We didn't dread it. It happened every year and we embraced it. With pride. We went sledding, ice skating, had soup suppers, cookie exchanges, more sledding parties and a few more skating parties. The snow, wind and cold never stopped us: we were from the North where winter is fun.

But, in the lovely state of Nebraska where everything is flat and the corn fields spread on forever gusting with 50mph winds, winter is something to be dreaded. There is nothing fun to do here in the winter. Except go to the Post Office and stamp 121 belated Christmas cards during a blizzard.

In Nebraska, often a winter storm comes in this order:

Rain.

Wind.

Ice.

Wind.

Snow.

Snow.

Wind.

Snow.

Wind.

Let me give you a little secret here: Hidden secretly under the layers of drifted snow, a sheet of ice lays ready to slay anyone who dares to trek out in the cold. You can scoop snow and you can haul snow and you can play in snow but WHAT do you do about ice? Nothing. In Nebraska, we wait for sun, not salt.

And usually the sun does come and within a week or so, our roads are clear. And we can do things like go to Walmart and Church and stuff. But not this year. This year, the sun refuses to shine and when it does, it just gleefully tempts us with it rays while the below zero frigid air, fights to keep the snow and ice packed firmly on our landscape.

Since this year's winter storms have come with a heavy does of Cabin Fever ingredients, people just stay home until they become like canned vegetation with a meaningless existence. I seriously HATE winter. I know that sounds cliche' because everyone is saying it right now but for the first time in all of my existence, those words have escaped my mouth.

For the first time I see WHY people go to the southern parts of our hemisphere just to get sun and warm air. I see now why people spend their life savings on vacations to warmer climates. I understand fully why people hate winter. And I'll never wonder again why people don't go to places like Alaska for Christmas vacation. I so get it now.

Bears have it down pat; they sleep the winter away. It's a perfect solution to an otherwise aimless existence as canned vegetation. If you can't beat the cold, sleep. If only my kids would participate more readily....

To top it off, after staring intentely at the four walls around me for the last month, I have this new theory about depression. The sun is loaded with Vitamin D3 and Vitamin D3 has been proven as a great supplement to take for depression. There is no Vitamin D3 to be had in our sub-zero climate right now which explains why Cabin Fever is so depressing. Are you following me? If not, you must not have Cabin Fever.

It's also a proven theory that our bodies do know how to heal themselves; we just have to provide the right balance of nutrition, rest and supplements when necessary. Since people automatically pick sunny, vacation spots, Voil-a! coveting a sunny vacation is actually your body's way of saying, "Help! I'm dying of depression!"

So. If you find yourself craving a sunny beach or a heavenly experience of something warm on your face, book that vacation and get away from here. If your bank account doesn't kill you Cabin Fever will anyway. And personally, I'd rather die happy than die depressed.

Disclaimer: if parts of this post are unintelligable or difficult to comprehend, just be thankful you don't really know what Cabin Fever is.

The Day Mom Took a Nap

2010-01-06T16:00:00.001-06:00

I stayed up until after midnight on New Years Eve just to make sure 2009 left. And then the next night, I stayed up again, to make sure 2010 continued on it's merry march away from 2009. Actually, I don't know why I stayed up too late. Looking back, it was a bad action on my part.

So the next day, I got this novel idea to take a nap. You know, that time in the day where you lay down and sleep for a short time.

After ~~reading a manual on how to take a nap~~ deciding to rest while the kids were resting, I tried the nap idea.

Just as I drifted off, a little person came to the side of my bed...

"Mom."

(I just pretended I was sleeping.)

"Mom."

(I realized then that I really was actually sleeping, so I wasn't actually pretending after all.)

"MOMMY..."

(For some reason she ~~didn't care~~ couldn't tell I was actually SLEEPING.)

"Hey, Mom...."

(I then made a mental note to have the "when-people-are-sleeping-you-don't-talk-to-them" talk with my daughter.)

"What do you want Janae?" I finally asked.

"I have to go to the bathroom," she said, as if that was a good enough reason to wake me up.

Wondering if her passport to the bathroom had suddenly expired, or if there was a sign on the bathroom that said, "Do Not Enter Without Written Permission," or maybe she couldn't remember where the one and only bathroom in our house was, I simply told her to "GO" and laid there confused as to why the. one. and. only. time. I. should. try. to. nap, she would have to interrupt my efforts with a request to use the bathroom.

She pranced to the bathroom, slammed the door shut and soundly locked the door. It was pretty much silent in the bathroom except for a few plops and quiet clamoring around.

"Janae," I called from my bed, "What are you doing?"

"Pooping," she assured me as I heard a metal object land on the floor.

"Uh, huh," I mused under my breath but too groggy to connect the dots between a locked bathroom door, the metal-sounding object on the floor, my 4-year-old daughter and the dragging-out-minutes of her time in the bathroom.

Just then, her wonderful father came upstairs. I groggily mumbled the situation to him when he poked his head in our door and was grateful when he took over. She was soundly sent to bed ~~without any bread or butter~~ and told to stay there.

And I went back to sleep.

TWO hours later (yes, you read that right) I woke up. It had been so long since I felt that rested that I had to re-calculate my whereabouts, name, marital status and date of birth. When I fully came to my senses, a pungent odor filled the air and I could hear some very quick footed children flitting swiftly across the house whispering unknown messages to each other while the walls echoed with their vibrant stampede from one end of the house to the other.

I slowly slipped out from under the down-filled weight of blankets and meandered sleepily out to the land of the living. I stopped in the bathroom and surveyed a stray pair of scissors on the bathroom sink. Scissors on the bathroom sink mean 2 things: Some child has freshly cut hair or some child has freshly cut hair.

The nauseating smell of pickled jalapeno peppers trailed around the house. It was evident the snack had been enjoyed in places other than the dining room table, mainly because I could taste the smell everywhere.

Concerned about the scissors and the peppers, I asked what was going on. My 4-year-old daughter excitedly comforted me with these words: "Oh, Landon is babysitting me Mom!"

For some reason, I didn't feel all that comforted.

I happened to pick up the computer just then and began to examine it. I soon found the computer's 'T' key would not work right and wondered why it was suddenly necessary to pound directly and firmly on that key every time I used it. If I didn't, I had to implement the "backspace" key and re-insert the missing "T" and it was getting annoying. "What did my computer ever do to my kids to deserve this?" I wondered inwardly.

As I pondered this new phenomenon and wondered about the scissors on the bathroom sink, my nose trailed down the offending jalapeno peppers. They were sitting in a bowl under the couch.

Of course. If I was a 5-year-old babysitter, I would totally put pickled jalapeno peppers under the couch too. It made perfect sense.

I then began to question about the scissors, making certain to make no mention of hair. Landon assured me he didn't cut Janae's hair. And Janae assured me she really did cut her own hair this time. She strategically pulled out the lock of hair that was missing the better end of it's length and explained why she needed to do that.

As I tried to wrap my head around WHY my daughter needed to cut her hair, I also tried to rationalize WHY I needed to take a nap. Neither seemed to be the lesser of two evils because the fact is, had I not taken a nap, the hair would not have been cut. Suddenly, my much-enjoyed-nap had become a bad experience.

The moral of this story is that, well... um, I guess there is no moral. Just that it's better to be awake and tired than to be sleeping and not tired.

Pressure, Blogging, And How They Work Together

2010-01-02T19:00:00.001-06:00

I blog best under pressure. Like when I'm barely sitting up while enduring the throes of morning sickness. Or suffering under the sleepless nights of a colic baby. Or chasing 3 kids, 3yrs and under. And lately, I've not experienced any of the above since I'm not pregnant, I don't have a baby with colic and I don't even own a 3-year-old anymore. Which is a good excuse for why I haven't blogged.

I'll admit that I've been under pressure in the last how-ever-many-months-it's-been-since-I-went-on-a-blogging-hiatus but not the kind of pressure that makes it easier to blog. When your mind is so mumble jumbled with, well... stuff, it's hard to think about life realistically and recognize the bright things in life.

But today, I'm getting ready for company. And my last batch of company just barely left. And I've been sick with the flu. And Toby was on the phone yesterday for FOURTEEN hours straight (9:30 am to 1:30 --- oh wait, that would be SIXTEEN hours straight) trying to fix an important business computer program that refuses to be fixed so finally he had to go to Best Buy and just up and buy another computer (yeah, just throw that on for kicks... it's "only" a computer) and I have piles of laundry, mounds of dust, a disaster zone refrigerator, a vacuum cleaner's paradise-carpeted-house and a 2 year old cleaning the cold wood stove with wet wipes. Not to mention a page worth of "to-do" stuff to-do today.

And I have a lot on my mind. To sum what's-on-my-mind up, 2009 is a GREAT year to have come to an end. It was just a bad year in general. My "New Year's Resolution" (which I'm always very picky about making New Year's Resolutions) is "Survival Was Fine For 2009, To Do Better We CAN In 2010."

--------------
Now it's several days later. And I didn't get my post done before the company arrived. But, what I did do was actually accomplish laundry and entered the New Year leaving all the dirty laundry in the old year. I wish I was figuratively speaking but I mean that literally: the clothing, sheets, towels, lines, etc., were all CLEAN before the clock struck midnight.

As for Toby's computer woes, he decided to continue with the tech-support-method of fixing the computer problem instead of spending $,$$$ to replace the whole contraption. He continues to spends hours on the phone and eats supper at his desk. I offered to actually fix the problem for him but when I told him it involved a hatchet, he decided to just put up with the tech-support guy for another few hours.

But, the laundry is still clean, the house is relatively structured and I have some pretty good intentions on re-formatting my life in the wifely/mothering/homeschooling/just-house-keeping-in-general-area of living.

What a great way to start out the year!

Life with Landon

2009-12-30T00:00:00.001-06:00

Our five-year-old, Landon, is a charming little guy. But when he's around, I become a walking encyclopedia-dictionary-google-search-engine-thesaraus-thing-a-ma-bob.

I love being a mom. The following questions and discussions we've had together are not only funny but exhausting because whenever there's a chance to ask a question, he'll ask it... no matter the situation.

As I watch the way he thinks and record the questions he asks (my brain is too tired to remember it all so I have to write it down), I sometimes wonder what he'll be when he grows up. But usually, I'm too tired from the latest brain excersize to even remember that he WILL grow up someday and that I WILL look back on the questions and laugh. And not sigh, like I do now.

-------------------
Landon: "Mom, is my nose straight?"
Me: "Yeah."
(a few seconds later) Landon: "Is it straight right here?"
Me: "Yeah."
(a few minutes later) Landon: "Is my nose like yours or is it like Daddy's'?"
Me: *confused*
Landon: "Is it like Alex's nose?"
Me: "Your nose is just like Landon's nose."
Landon: "Huh?"
---------------

Landon: Is Jingle Bells a Christmas song?

Landon: Is Jesus Loves me a Christmas song?

---------------
Landon: "Check and see if Grandma and Grandpa are coming today."
Me: "They're not yet Landon."
Landon: "Well Hannah said they were coming in 6 more days!"
Me: "I know but it's not 6 more days yet."
Landon: "You just think it's not 6 more days but it is."

---------------
Landon: "When they wrap the plastic around the Christmas tree, why doesn't it go in and come out all by itself?" (motioning how the tree springs out after you unwrap it.)
Me: "It does, after you take it off."
Landon: "Take what off?"
Me: "The plastic."
Landon: "It HAS plastic?"

---------------
Landon: "Could Daddy easy jump over Alex?"
Me: "Yep."
Landon: "How?"
(without giving me a chance to answer, he jumped into a whole parade of questions...
L: "Could he jump over you?"
L: "Could Daddy jump over a guy?"
L: "If someone was his age could he jump over him?"
Me: "Uh, um, I don't know... it would depend."
Landon: "When I grow up, am I going to be older than Dad?"

---------------
While getting ready to go out and bring in wood from the snowy, icy back yard, Landon only had jeans, tennis shoes and a coat on. Directing him to get snow boots and snow pants on, Landon wailed, "But that'll take a HUNDRED years!!!"

---------------
Landon: "Where's Daddy's face mask."
Me: "In the guestroom."
Landon: "Where in the guestroom?"
Me: "On the bed."
Landon: "Uh-uh!! Daddy said I could wear it!"
Me: "I know Landon, it's on the bed in the guestroom."
Landon: "Oh, it IS?"

---------------
Landon: "Janae needs a better brain."
Me: "Why?"
Landon: "She messes up the fish (Go Fish! game) and she doesn't get my cowboy boots when I tell her to... she needs a brain!"

--------------
While watching a Live Nativity scene, Landon couldn't stop the questions...
"Is that a real baby?"
"Where are the angels?"
"Why don't the angels have wings?"
"What is that guy doing?"
"Why is he dressed that way?"
"Where ARE the angels?"

---------------
(during lunch one day)
Landon: "Why don't we fly to Haiti?"
Me: "Because it costs a lot of money."
Landon: "Why don't we drive then?"
Me: "Because there's too much water."
Landon: "There's no roads past the water?"
Me: "Nope."
Landon: "Why aren't there roads?"
Me: "Because there's too much water -- you can only take a boat."
Landon: "So why don't we take a boat?"
Me: "Because we'll fly instead."
Landon: "How will our car get there?"
Me: "We won't bring our car."
Landon: "So will we walk then?"
(without giving me a chance to answer, he continued...)
Landon: "So what will you do in case you need to get across the river and you don't have your car... what happens?"
Me: "Somebody else picks you up."
Landon: *speechless* (finally)

Do I Really Look That Smart???

2009-12-12T07:00:00.000-06:00

I sit down for a moment of silence to do something novel. Like blog. As I sit there trying to remember even HOW to blog or find my way through the mental process of burying myself in the thrill of a blog moment, I'm interrupted by a bombardment of questions.

Questions about life.

About stuff.

About things.

About everything.

And they're not "yes" and "no" every-day-type questions. It's questions like...

"What kind of car will I drive when I get older?"

"Did your belly just open up and I came out?"

"How old will Alex be when I'm big?"

"How old was Alex when he was born?"

"Is it Christmas 'time' or Christmas 'day'?"

"Do you know where my gun is, Mom?"

"I can't find my gun, where is it?"

"I put my gun right here; do you know where it is now?"

"Did all those people watch Mary push her baby out?" (while looking at a nativity scene and connecting the dots between Mary having a baby and our cat having kittens.)

"Is it Christmas 'day' or Christmas 'time'?"

"What will I name my baby when I have one?"

"When me and Alex and Landon grow up, what kind of car will we drive and where will it be?"

"If our house burns up, will it burn down?"

"When that building burns up, how many days will it take them to clean it up?"

"Who owns the mountains?"

"If water gets rid of fire then why doesn't fire get rid of water?"

"Can I call you Courtney when I get big?"

As I sit and try to answer these questions and other questions similar to it, I find my brain becoming exhausted by the exhilarating workout my 5 and 4-yr-old provide for me.

You'd think with all this intense exercise, I'd become sharper, not duller. Ha!

Quite the contrary. By the end of the day, I can't remember what I did that morning, what happened yesterday or if I had plans to be somewhere that night. From the moment my kids get up until they go to bed, I ~~go through an interrogation~~ become a living dictionary. A Thesaurus. A reference guide. And the funny thing is when they counter-question me just to make sure I have my facts straight.

Like when I put my 4 yr-old down for a quiet time at TWO o'clock and assure her she can be up by three o'clock. Instead, she insists on being up by ONE o'clock as she nestles comfortably in her cozy bed.

Or when my 5 yr-old asks what direction we're going. And I tell him north. He'll adamantly disagree and insist we're going east. I've learned never to argue with a 5 yr-old using a broken compass.

And then there's the 2-yr-old who is given the luxury of THREE books in his bed during nap time. Instead, he insists on only TWO books.

As I try to burrow into the passageways that are my kids' brains and ways of thinking, talking, questioning and comprehending, I come away more confused and befuddled than ever. Logic and reality are two things that don't seem to play in very often.

My kids are so trusting. So gullible. So innocent. Until it comes to some of their questioning. And then I wonder where the trust is...

"Mom, can you count to 'zero'?" I hear from across the room.

"ZERO!" I reply.

"NOOOO! Do it right!" the 4 yr-old instructs.

"ZERO, one, two, three...." I reply, with a little more emphasis.

First, silence. And then, "that is really HOW you count to zero?" a shocked voice speaks in an, innocent 5 yr-old way.

"Yes Landon; that is really HOW you count to zero..."

The look of satisfaction and comprehension of learning where 'zero' fits in the numerical order is written all over their faces. And it's always worth the extra brain energy it takes me to make an answer clear, no matter how pointless I may think the question is. Or how many times they may re-word their questions.

About the time I think they may even exhaust an advanced google search engine if they had the capability of typing in their questions, I'll hear a question like this...

"Will you guys still be our mom and dad when Landon and I have kids?"

Yes, we'll always be your mom and dad. And you'll always be our kids.

Oh Yeah... I Do Have a Blog

2009-11-21T12:50:00.006-06:00

It just dawned on me that I pretty much never blog anymore. Never.

As I sit here typing, I can hear two small children helping themselves to Popsicles and crackers in the kitchen. Janae is teaching Alex how to say Popsicle... "Alex, say PAAAA," to which Alex says, "PAAAAA," and then Janae finishes with unintelligible syllables. She's quite the teacher.

Life is one crazy busy good thing. Death has been an ever present shadow on our lives this year and though it's easy to withdraw into morbidity and let yourself grow numb and cold to little things in life like breathing and health and things such as that, it's been a good reminder that life is precious. Each day is new. And God is good.

We've spent a lot of time on the road lately. By the time November is over, we will have spent 42+ hours in our van since October 23rd. That's not including the 36 hours we spent between July and August.

Though living out of a suitcase may not be as homey and predictable as living out of a dresser, we've enjoyed all the time spent with family and friends. And wouldn't trade it for anything.

School has been a rough thing to stay on top of -- the actual schoolwork part has gone very well but it's just getting it in and staying consistent that's been challenging. The kids love to learn and everything usually goes well until I get poked in the eye with the back end of a pencil. Or someone decides to compete in a letter-writing race with their sibling and turns out a bunch of squiggly lines that are supposed to be the letter 's'. Or Alex decides to cut the calender with a pair of scissors. Other than that, it's really good. I'd recommend homeschooling to everyone I know. (But, be sure and wear safety glasses though.)

So I guess this all just to say that I do still profess to be a blogger and just because I don't blog here much doesn't mean anything more than that I'm either riding on some long and distant interstate or doing school with the kids.

When a Friend in Labor, Piano Tuning, Kittens and Evening Plans Collide

2009-10-31T15:00:00.000-05:00

Do you have any idea how many times I've come to blogspot.com just to blog something and all I do is type in a fury and then delete it? Or I stare at the screen and wonder what kind of life people must have before they're entitled to having something to blog about? And then there's the time I stare at the very blank blog screen and line it up to match perfectly with my very blank brain. I've learned that as honest and open as that may seem, that blank screen doesn't produce a blog post either.

My days are busy and full but not much worth mentioning in a blog post. At times, the day's happenings seem almost too crazy to blog about. Anyone in their right mind would read what I'd say and go, "Wow, she has issues." And believe me, I do have issues.

Like the evening my husband came home from work and said, "Hey, let's go out for supper tonight." And I happily said, "Sure! Great idea!"

But then I had to finish up the closet organization project that was all over our bed while dealing with the allergy attack the cleaning had given me.

And I also had to finalize things with the blind piano tuner guy that was sitting at the piano, making out-of-key "dah-dah-dum" sounds over in his corner with the piano.

Plus, a lady was coming to look at 2 of our kittens and before she could see them, I needed to extract the kittens from their hard-to-reach corner in the garage and make sure they didn't look like orphaned kittens or anything.

Meanwhile, friends had brought the piano-tuner-guy over and we were thinking of working out supper details with them for the evening.

On top of it all, a friend of mine overdue to have her baby was having contractions. I had offered to watch their other child for the delivery so I was pretty much on-call for babysitting.

So, I squared away the kittens. Got in touch with my laboring friend just in time to hear her say, "Yuck. My water is breaking." And then showed the blind piano-tuner-guy to the bathroom.

Realizing the imminent reality of birth just around the corner for our friend, my husband came up with plan B.

I would stay home with Alex.
He would take the older two kids to town to get the errands done.
I would call our friends to cancel supper plans.
He would take the truck so I'd have a vehicle to go get my laboring-friend's child.
I would stay home long enough to pay the piano-tuner-guy and make sure his ride came.
The kitten lady would come to pick out her kittens.
I would go pick up laboring-friends' child.

Now, does any of the above make sense? In the 2 hours the above entire post took place in, it made no more sense than it does to you on paper. (Or computer screen, however you want to look at it.)

That was my evening.

Except the highlight happened when less than 2 hours after I picked up laboring-friend's child, I heard my no-longer-in-labor friend's bright and cheery voice on the other end of the phone say, "We have a little girl." Her voice, her chipperness and her tone made me think her evening had been far more relaxing than mine.

So maybe the next time we decide to have a quiet evening together, I'll just go in labor and have a baby.

(Now you believe me when I say I have issues, don't you?)

On Stoves, Perspectives and Kids

2009-10-12T07:00:00.001-05:00

Today I want to focus on the "usual" and "predictable" things of mothering that we often try to overlook. We mistake them for "abnormal" and "shocking."

Take for instance when you get all the laundry done only to turn around 5 hours later to find the hamper stock full again. (You had to see that coming.)

Or you no longer finish preparing and cleaning up one meal only to turn around and make another. (Seriously, that is SO normal, why did you expect something else?)

How about when you no sooner get all the clean sheets on the bed and your entire quiver of children ends up needing clean sheets the next morning because of circumstances beyond ~~your~~ their control. (Just a little tip: getting all the bed's changed at once, will jinx your laundry life.)

If you think I'm complaining, you need to get your brain checked. I'm NOT complaining; I'm simply stating facts of motherhood that come and go with the changing of seasons (and seasons can be as long as 9 months to as short as 30 seconds.)

Like the day Alex swallowed 12 chewable acidophulus pills. Try googling "acidophulus overdose in child." Actually, never mind: don't waste your time because no known side effects have been documented because basically, this has NEVER happened before. (It'll make you feel like your child may have a strange and unheard of disease with no cure because no one has researched it because no one has ever over-exposed themselves to acidophulus.)

Or the day all three kids were found playing with a dead four-foot-long bull snake. While eating crackers. (Don't worry -- they all had rubber gloves on.)

Or the time I found the piano had been covered in chalk. (Yes, the piano: NOT the sidewalk.)

I love the entire world of mothering... don't get me wrong. It's just that some things in life (like blogging) tend to not only take the back burner, they often get pushed right off the stove.

Which reminds me of the day I cleaned out the fridge and set the old food on the stove (my only "counter space" next to the fridge and on that side of the kitchen, for that matter.) Lo and behold, one of the containers of old food got pushed off the stove where it popped open and spilled between the stove and fridge.

Now, this just happened to be THE day I was getting ready for THE company of the year to come and voila! I had the chance of a lifetime to scrub and clean and sterilize all the unknown and unseen space behind, between, underneath and around the stove and fridge.

It was spic and span when I was done and it inspired me to do something novel. Like make supper. After I happily pushed the stove back in place and admired the top of the fridge that was now dusted off and clean (if you clean UNDER the stove, it's only natural you'd clean the TOP of the fridge too), I turned the stove to "ON." It seemed like a logical action since I was intending on cooking supper WITH the stove.

Suddenly, I was thrust right back into the stone ages. Where electricity was unheard of. Where suppers (did they call them that?) were cooked over an open fire outside. Where people lived in caves.

The stove had NO power.

"Weird," I thought, "So much for a clean stove that works..."

I pulled the stove back out again, admired the clean and dust free floor and tenderly caressed the side of the stove that was free of grime for the first time since it was manufactured. None of that seemed to effect the amount of power that attempted to circuit it's way to the "ON" setting on my stove.

So, I wiggled the gigantic-if-you-handle-it-wrong-you-will-get-shocked-cord and checked to see if the stove turned on.

NOTHING.

I thought about unplugging the cord from the socket but considering the back of the stove was plastered with, "WARNING: DO NOT DISCONNECT UNTIL POWER SOURCE IS SHUT OFF," I assumed I probably shouldn't disconnect it. The risk was electric shock and/or death. The electric shock didn't scare me as much as the death part did but I didn't know how I could just experience the electric shock without exposing myself to possible death. "At least I'd die knowing the underneath of my stove wasn't left for someone else to clean," I thought to myself. But I pushed the stove back and wondered if it was true that my stove could only work as long as it sat on an inch-thick-carpet of dust.

When my husband came home, he pulled the stove out again. He wiggled some things. Read a few labels. Asked me to give every detail on what happened to the stove. Then he pushed it back and told me to order pizza for supper.

The next day, we observed the stove in humble silence. By supper time, it still hadn't fixed itself so I made plans to do supper on the grill. Our grill has always been a reliable cooking source. I was thankful for the grill that day.

As it neared the time for company to arrive, the prepared food waited breathlessly to experience the warm thrill of the grill. I turned the gas setting to "ON" and turned the nobs to "ON" and pushed the start button "ON."

The south burner would not ignite. (This is Nebraska: there's no left or right. Only North, South, East and West.)

I tried again. And again. I shut the gas off in an attempt to reboot the entire contraption. Nothing. I wiggled some wires. Checked the "ON" button to make sure it was adequately connected. NOTHING. I took the whole grill apart. Checked for clogged connections. Nothing started that south burner.

I called for my dear husband. He came outside and looked the situation over and then lit the burner with a match. It worked. To this day, both North and South burners on the grill still work. And you can ignite them with the "ON" button, as it's made to be done.

After supper, my husband's brother checked the stove. Being the handyman this brother is in the electric department, he immediately detected the correct diagnosis of the stove. He gave me a play by play of what had happened the day before when the stove quit working. When I had pulled the stove out to clean it, I had stretched the wire too far. It became disconnected inside the outlet. He informed me that had I pulled it a little farther, there would've been an entertaining hue of sparks. The "DANGER: ELECTRIC SHOCK OR DEATH" warnings flashed in my mind.

The guys pushed the stove back, checked the stove for power and deemed the job complete. The stove worked. The stove was clean. And even the underneath of the stove was clean.

And to this day, the stove still works.

What I'm getting at is the fact that when "normal" and "easy to handle" things happen in our day, mothers should learn to recognize those things as rare and almost unheard of. But when things break or children come running with blood dripping off their fingers or you find the entire contents of the cereal bag on the floor or you stumble upon well lotioned up kids that are supposed to be getting ready for naps, don't panic. Those "disliked" and "unnecessary" occurrences are THE normal.

Like I've said before, it's all a matter of perspective.

When Life Overtakes Blogging

2009-10-08T10:45:00.003-05:00

I like writing. It's the untainted expression of what I think without distraction. And since this is my blog, I have no qualms about what I publish here.

At least that's how I feel.

But, so often I find the need to save lives to be of greater importance to blogging so... as you faithful readers (all three of you) know, my blog is neglected.

Then there's the times when I think about blogging but then I remember my list of stuff to do.

*Vacuum chocolate sprinkles that Two-Year-Old embedded in the carpet.

*Sweep up hot chocolate mix from the pantry floor.

*Locate missing Bosch part.

*Locate missing bread machine part.

*Peroxide up fresh stains on dining room floor (and try not to think about the dining room having carpet in the first place).

*Check clothes hamper for mold.

*Abolish the fragrant smell coming from bathroom.

*Pluck out popcorn kernels from carpet.

*~~Admire~~ Observe the scene of Lego's peppering the boys room.

*~~Harvest worms~~ Clean out guinea pigs' cages.

And the list goes on.

About the time I think I'm finally getting a handle on this whole "mothering" thing, I'll wind up shocking myself and saying things like...

"Stop doing that: you're putting holes in the wall."

"You should never put your hand on your plate when someone is putting food on it."

"Don't put that plate on your head: it's Fine China."

"Alex, do you want a time out?" (I'm not a 'time out' kind of mom.)

"If you don't stop crying right now, you WILL get out of the van and we WILL leave without you."

"No, Daddy does not know how to drive a train."

"Never put ink on your lips again. Especially red ink."

"Stop putting stuff in the melted candles."

"No, she is not your mother; I am your mother and she is your sister."

"Never cut your brother's hair again."

"Look at that kid! He's flinging food on the wall."

"If you guys don't stop fighting, we will not do school today."

"How did all that salt end up on the table anyway?"

And other such anomalies.

Such are the occurrences that occur with the passing of time within (and without) our four walls. I love blogging. I love documenting thoughts, happenings, life, etc. But some days, it's just not feasible. Then again, without my sometimes unpredictable and over-interesting life, I would have nothing to blog about.

It's all a matter of perspective.

"Honey, I Painted the Mini-Van Pink"

2009-09-12T10:15:00.002-05:00

...and other things you just shouldn't inform your husband about.

The other night, I was outside playing with the kidlets.

The occasion was none other than playing ball in the front yard because A) supper was in the crock pot and not quite done, or B) Daddy wasn't home from work yet, or C) bedtime wasn't quite available yet or D) we just needed some playtime.

Now, this particular night hailed the occasion of A so you can imagine the hungry herd of kidlets they were.

Not to be outdone by their famished state of being, each kidlet excretioned incredible amounts of fun and energy, as young little people are apt to do.

Landon zoomed on his bike in an impressive manner. Janae rather careened her way around objects and would rustle the romper on her young brother, Alex, as she spled (blend of "fled" and "sped") past him. It was the same idea as the wind rustling leaves, if you know what I mean. Seriously, some kids should just get speeding tickets; they're such a threat to society when they're on bikes.

I'm seriously thinking of installing a braking system that allows me to use a remote control to slow her bicycle down from a distance. She has two speeds on that bike: faster and fastest. She knows no danger when it comes to being on her two-wheels-with-one-functioning-training-wheel bike.

One day, I watched Janae hit Alex's trike going west down the sidewalk. She pretty much just bumped merrily over the back part of his poor mode of transportation, turned around and 14 seconds later, hit the same Alex's bike going east down the sidewalk. This time, she didn't bump merrily. Rather, she toppled to the ground with a rather dramatic and dangerous thud (kids can get concussions, I've heard). She wailed gustily through tears of heart ache, pain and regret as she laid ~~in pieces~~ under her bruised and bashed up bike, "I don't like this house, or this driveway." (Yeah the house and driveway really have a lot to do with the fact you can't seem to avoid hitting things with your bike.)

Meanwhile, I was thinking, "Watch out." I really try to be plain and simple when it comes to giving pieces of advice to my children -- I really do -- but I've realized it tends to come too late or if it is on time, they can't hear me for some reason. This was one of those "too late" times.

Another time I remembered watching Janae hit our neighbor's yard rock. It's like this huge, massive thing that's been there ever since before Janae ~~was born~~ learned how to ride bike but it seemed to escape her memory as to it's general location on this particular day.

As Janae was sailing at top speed down the sidewalk, she veered off into the neighbor's yard (who knows; maybe there's an imaginary slope there that pulls her bike off the beaten path) and just like that, WHAM! she hit the thing so hard, it bounced her back 2 feet. She came to a very sudden but upright stop. (notice, I said UPRIGHT.)

She giggled with glee, turned the wheel and took off in the intended direction she should've been going.

(To all you PETR --People for the Ethical Treatment of Rocks-- no rocks were harmed in the making of this scenario.)

So. As I was saying, I was outside playing with the kids while we waited for supper to finish cooking

Landon and Janae were zooming up and down the sidewalk, dodging each other and other objects such as that younger brother, while I played catch with that younger brother.

As I threw Alex (the younger brother) the ball and attempted to catch his throws (my catch is poor; his throw is impressive), I stumbled in the yard (no surprise there) and twisted my ankle.

Ouch.

(If you don't know what I mean by "ouch," you have obviously never twisted your ankle.)

I continued to play, chalked up the twisted ankle to my klutziness, and attempted to throw/catch another ball. While ~~performing an amazing circus act~~ catching that particular child's ball, I suddenly did this ~~impressive~~ awkward move in a desperate lunge at the ball and began to notice an equal amount of pain in my left knee and right elbow at the same time.

Weird, I thought, a two wheeled truck must've just come out of no where and hit me.

Then it dawned on me that my elbow had actually made an unnatural contact with my knee and the impact of both coming together, caused an unnatural reaction. There's nothing like hitting yourself with yourself because then you have automatic pain in two locations.

Not to be outdone by my advancing klutziness nor to give in to my growing embarrassment as I made a spectacle of myself to all the neighbors, I showed the kids my amazing skill of throwing the ball up on the roof and then catching it as it rolls down. I can be pretty quick witted, you know.

You should've seen their faces: they were impressed. The look of pride in their eyes as they watched their sports-man-ship-like mom, was worth the effort it took to learn the skill of How To Throw A Ball On The Roof.

They were amazed. I was like this hero, or something, to them.

As I threw, rolled and caught the ball, I continued to get braver and braver. I'd throw harder. Faster. ~~Less-like-a-girl~~ Stronger. The entertainment level was at 5+stars and boy, were we all happy.

Just then, the unthinkable happened: the ball got lodged between a gable-end-eave and the porch roof. (If you don't know where that location is, you are obviously not married to a roofer.)

Not to be outdone by the little set-back in our performance for the day, I grabbed a wrangled stick and poked and prodded and stabbed and swung the stick at the lodged ball. I needed a couple more feet of height --among other things; like I'm sure a brain would've really come in handy right then-- and had to come up with another plan.

So I grabbed a garden rake.

The garden rake was a marvelous idea. Until it scratched the flashing. Oops. (If you're married to a roofer, you realize the danger of scratching the flashing.)

I marched back to the garage and found a gazillion-foot-long piece of quarter-round-trim (if you're married to a carpenter, you'll know what that is.)

I poked and prodded and stabbed and swung the trim at the lodged ball. I still needed ~~a brain~~ height and heard Janae say, "Nope, you're not gettin' it Mom."

Thanks, Janae. It's so kind of you to point out the obvious. (Her perception amazes me.)

3 blunders on the yard playing ball, confirmed my klutziness. 3 attempts at removing the ball from it's inconveniently lodged location, confirmed my inability to coordinate ball-rescue attempts. Plain and simple, I was a doomed failure.

As Janae continued to zoom dangerously up and down the sidewalk on her bike, I recognized the finality of supper's cooking and called the kids in. We sat down to eat, gave thanks and dug into our meal. Everything was perfect until I began to tell my husband, that dear darling man, my 3 acts of klutziness.

When I got to the part about the elbow-colliding-with-the-knee, it all seemed too outrageous to even be legal. He was too confused to understand how that could happen.

It makes me have to excuse my daughter for her inability to avoid bouncing her bike off of the neighbor's landscape rocks because seriously, with a mom like me, she comes by it naturally... the poor child.

And poor husband... me re-enacting at the supper table how my elbow-hit-the-knee, couldn't be any worse than if I were to paint the van pink.

Or could it?

Happy Birthday Zack-Man!

2009-09-07T14:20:00.005-05:00

It's not that hard to smile. Really, it isn't. It's not that hard to show a little concern. Or care. Or kindness. Or interest into an other's life. Really, it isn't.

And whenever I think it is, I think of my brother Zack.

Zack turns 19 today. He's a nice fellow to have around, always chatting and keeping you company. He shows great interest in everything you're doing and asks a million-and-one questions about things related to your life. He pretty much always has a smile on his face and a song in his heart and begs his siblings to just sit down at the piano and play lively little tunes so he can beat his African drum to the music.

And he never misses a beat either. He's like a living metronome and keeps us all in line.

By today's standards, Zack has many reasons to be unhappy. He had a rough start in life and spent the first 2 years of his life in and out of Children's hospitals. He struggled developmentally for years and actually still does. He will never have a successful job nor will he marry and have kids. He can't talk very clearly nor can he carry a tune. But, he loves to do his chores. He loves kids. He loves to talk. And he sings every chance he gets.

Zack has Down Syndrome.

Zack smiles at everyone. He's always friendly and remembers people's names. He thrives on people. He's taught me the value of smiling and being cheerful and showing friendliness to everyone. Not just to people I know.

Like yesterday when I rode a Ferris Wheel for the first time in my life. We were at the state fair together and it was a special occasion. Not to mention that Toby really wanted me to ride the Ferris Wheel with him. Ever since I was a child, I had always wondered what it would be like to ride one so to have the man of my dreams invite me on one, was special indeed.

While we waited in line, I anticipated our ride. I knew it would be special. Toby and I would sit on one side, our arms around each other. The kids would sit around us, enjoying the scenery. I just knew it had to be a spectacular and romantic moment.

Meanwhile, an older man stood ready and waiting at the gate. He had his tickets in hand and he stood in line for a long time. I didn't notice him until right when we got up to the gate ourselves; he was a little guy and almost appeared to be a child from behind.

I noticed his toe nails were over grown and cracked. He was severely wall-eyed and you couldn't tell where he was looking exactly. He walked slow, almost in a shuffling manner. He had a quiet voice but he was excited about the ride ahead of him.

When it came time for him to go through the gate, he started walking through but the ticket man stopped him and asked if he had someone to go with him. The older man smiled and pointed to his chest and nodded. He was obviously alone, even if he said he wasn't. With sympathy, the ticket guy told him he couldn't let him on by himself; he had to have someone to go with. The lady and daughter next in line were motioned to step forward.

The older man stepped back, looked around and didn't really know what to do. He seemed confused but really wanted that ride. So he kept waiting in line. He was excited about his ride and held the tickets in his hand expectantly, waiting for his turn to get on. He obviously hadn't understood that he was disqualified because he kept his handful of tickets ready. The bright look on his face showed he was undaunted. He was clueless as to the let down of what this meant.

This man had Down Syndrome.

When it came time for us to get on the Ferris Wheel, I glanced up at Toby, asked if he'd care (which I knew the answer to already), and then told the ticket guy the older man was welcomed to ride with us.

The ticket guy warmly thanked us and he and another staff arranged our gondola for us. They seemed to be taken back by our willingness to let a stranger go with us and made a pointed effort to thank us.

We climbed in and our guest ungracefully clamored into his seat. He landed with a bit of a thud. He was unhurt but his balance was unacceptable for a swaying fair-ride contraption and we realized later, he really did need assistance going over uneven surfaces. But he was excited about his ride and kept motioning with his hands what the Ferris Wheel was doing.

The wheel started turning and we tried to have a conversation with our friend. It was hard to decipher most of the things he said but I tried to translate -- his speech was similar to Zack's only worse because his tongue was almost lazy about pronunciation. But he never gave up trying to talk. If we asked him to repeat it again, he'd take a deep breath, kind of look away and then say it again. He was very patient.

We asked what his name was. First he said his name was Todd. Then it sounded like Tom. Then it sounded like he said Ty. He mumbled and didn't make much sense in his speech But, he did talk about the Marines and pointed to his army-print shorts and saluted.

He asked us what our names were and held out a limp hand to shake our hands in greeting (just like Zack). He told us he was 55 and wanted to find "an old lady to marry" and with a funny grin on his face, pointed at me. We laughed and enjoyed the scenery and listened to "Ty" talk about Milwaukee and Las Vegas and his brother and how he got to the fair by bus.

When we got off our ride, a lady was waiting with a smile at the end of the exit ramp. She was "Ty's" caretaker and told us his name was actually "John." She laughed when we told her he said he was from Milwaukee and she thanked us profusely for letting him ride with us. She gave us 2 extra ride tickets that she wasn't going to use and then tenderly took John by the hand back to the group they had come with.

And so concluded my first ever Ferris Wheel ride. I have to admit, it was memorable indeed. Probably even more so than I ever thought a first Ferris Wheel ride could be. In a way, it felt like I spent it with Zack. The mannerisms that John had were identical to Zack and I loved how natural and comfortable he felt with us. It was just like Zack.

Every time I see a Ferris Wheel from now on, I'll remember the importance of a smile and the special experience it is when you do the least expected to "one of the least of these."

"And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me." Matthew 25:40

But really, if you ask me, people like Zack and John are almost pictures of what heaven will be like. They carry no grudges. No shame. No pretense. No guile. They don't worry about the stock market. Or their jobs. Or what they're going to do tomorrow. They just love unconditionally.

It's funny how we tend to look at "special" people and think they really miss out on life since they can't enjoy things "normal" people can. I have come to realize that people like Zack and John may not have the greatest physics. But their hearts are the biggest pumping muscle known to mankind. And it makes me wonder if really the ones missing out are maybe us "normal" people. Maybe in reality, those special folks are created so perfect that they have a perpetual tunnel of vision into heaven's glory which is proven in the the way they treat others. They understand us yet we at times never understand them.

And no matter how they're treated, they still smile. It's no wonder Landon's middle name is after my brother Zachary. Zack has always been my hero. His strength, his confidence, his happiness, his honesty and his unintimidated way of loving is absolutely phenomenal.

I hope he has the Happiest Birthday ever today because he deserves every bit of it.

Zack and my brothers Gabe (piano) and Levi (guitar) jamming it up for another round of "The Syndrome Brother's Band." Go here to listen... And then go here to hear another classic.

Do's and Dont's This Mother Learned the Hard Way

2009-09-04T07:00:00.002-05:00

(The following outlines, are summaries of true stories that happened to our family. At our house. In our home. Around us. To us. etc. These are facts not based on imagination or fiction; these are real-to-life tales of innocent ~~children~~ parents with adventurous children.)

Never buy sheet sets for your child's bed. Never. Simply purchase a plush mattress pad, a plastic bed liner and make sure your child has a bed-bug-less pillow with a half decent pillowcase. You're then good to go. IF there should ever be an "accident" on the bed during the night while your child is sleeping, the amount of laundry you have to do will be minimal. And you won't have to dread changing sheets on the top bunk anymore.

Never buy shoes for your child. They'll just lose them and insist on going barefoot anyway.

Never discourage your child from talking to strangers. That way when they see their own grandfather for the first time in 6 months, they won't be afraid to sit on his lap.

Never treat the stains on clothing with stain remover. Before you have a chance to wash laundry, that clothing item will grow mold. Unless you wash laundry more often than every 2 weeks.

Never change your vacuum-cleaner-bag in front of your child. The child will think he has free access to the vacuum-cleaner-bag whenever he wants. If the said vacuum ever malfunctions, check the said bag for complete connection. The said child may have disconnected the said bag.

Never use a glass jar of any kind for your daughter to put her fireflies in. You will lose all rights to your canning jars during your child's entire childhood because each jar will be used (and broken) all for the sake of insects.

Never plant seeds in your garden in front of your child. They may be tempted to go back to the garden later and try to find all your seeds that you buried.

Never buy sidewalk chalk and expect your kids to use the side-walk chalk ON the sidewalk. Instead, they will use it in buckets of water to make paste, as bullets in their "guns" and will throw it up in the air just to see it shatter in a million pieces when it hits the cement sidewalk.

Never teach your kids how to ride bike. They will expect you to take them on a bike ride every evening before supper for the rest of their child hood.

Never tell your child they must stay in bed until 4pm for their nap. They will lay awake staring at the clock until 4pm.

Never allow your child to play with straws in the bathtub. That way, in the event they should poop in the tub.... well, it's just better if they don't have straws.

Never allow your child to play a game on your cell phone. They will remove any phone protectant cover you have on the phone.

Never allow your child to play a game on your cell phone. They will delete your entire chat history with all your IM friends.

Never allow your child to play a game on your cell phone. They will call the police with the phone instead.

Killing Dead Flies

2009-09-01T07:37:00.000-05:00

Our house becomes quickly infested with flies this time of year if the kitchen door is left open for any period of time. You can simply turn the door knob, slip outside, close the door and have the whole thing over in 2 seconds. In just that amount of time, an entire population of flies will have infested the kitchen for their annual family reunion.

The above scene happened recently. A divine prompting came to my dear husband's heart and he went on a wild rampage of fly killing. The floor, cupboards and counter were littered with swarms of dead flies.

Landon wandered through the kitchen shortly after and noticed the flies. The DEAD flies. He began to stomp on them with his foot and smash them with his index finger. He seemed quite pleased.

Finally he remarked, "You know, it's really easy to kill dead flies."

Yeah, it is, I thought, trying to stifle a laugh.

In his mind, the flies were still available for the kill. The battle wasn't over until the flies were out-of-site-out-of-mind. Also known as: the garbage can. They still needed a crushing blow, even if they were laying limp and motion-less on the floor.

Maybe because of his humorous outlook at "killing dead flies" or maybe because in some ways, I can relate to that experience on a more adult level, I've been thinking a lot about my cute son's innocent remark on something so obvious. Because really, What is the point of killing something dead?

Not to wax eloquent or make this into a spiritual allegory but really, how often I find myself doing the same things. I strive and work to accomplish something that's already been done. I feel pleased when I achieve at finishing an already accomplished task and I move on to do other counterproductive things similar to "killing dead flies."

I become aware of weaknesses in my life and work hard to root them out of my heart. When in reality, Christ has already conquered those things; His grace is there to replace the things I struggle with and give me victory over them instead.

I become influenced by the fear of man and strive to impress others with my ability to make them happy. When in reality, I'm only called to please God. And that is accomplished when I take my place at the foot of the cross.

I become overwhelmed with the daunting tasks of motherhood and work harder to be more joyful. More gracious. More gentle. When in reality, that is already available to me in the person of Jesus Christ.

Why do I do things like "kill dead flies?" Why do I so easily forget that all I need is Christ? Why do I misplace the reality that nothing can separate me from the love of Christ?

It's probably because I'm too busy looking for dead flies to kill that I forget to look up and realize my Father has already gone ahead and accomplished the battlefield of life before me and made a river through the desert for me.

After I explained to Landon that the flies were already killed, thanks to his own father, he got a knowing smirk on his face and continued his battle with the dead flies. It amused me to see my son take deliberate and careful aim with his finger tip and plunge his finger tip into an already dead fly. He boasted in his victory and seemed impressed he could accomplish such impossible feats, even if it was his dad that made it possible for him to do it.

In the same way, God lays already conquered things in my life and joys in the pleasure I find in claiming them as my own.

To remember that because of Him, I can find victory in the struggles in life, the weaknesses of my flesh and the tendencies to fear that I have. And to remember to see each battle before me as a mere dead fly, that's already been killed.

When God Hands You Lemons, Smile

2009-08-30T13:36:00.001-05:00

I had plans today. Plans to get out and do something fun. Just the kids and I. Toby had another engagement he was committed to and I thought to myself, "It's rare on a weekend when it's just the kids and I." So I thought something fun and out-of-the-ordinary was in order.

But, then my plans changed. I was left with no vehicle. "Hmmmm," I wondered. "Now what?"

I was tempted to be a tad miffed and even grumble. The temptation came to fruition and I did express my irritation ever so slightly. It seems to be the trend of my life lately... get plans, crash plans, no plans.

Inwardly, I made desperate exasperations like, "Why can't I just have a normal life? Why can't things just be predictable?? Why can't we just have a fun day?" And as I selfishly mused and grumbled in my heart on these depressing thoughts, I was convicted to think in a more logical sense.

And I came to a million-dollar answer to that age old question: What is normal life??

Normal life, as I have come to realize for myself, is when no loved one close to me is dying or has recently died. All the other little hiccups and bumps and bruises in life are really pale in comparison to what the death of a loved one can do to you.

The heart ache. The pain. The constant reality of death. The uncertainty of life. The dooming despair of another sad funeral. The quickly-emptying Kleenex boxes. The "I-don't-want-to-go-through-another-day" feeling. The despair. Death of a loved one really is one of THE worst things a person can go through. Even if the departed one is in Heaven. Goodbyes are just cruel.

As I observed my little disappointment today and the trite way I felt slighted because I had plans change once again, I thought, "Really Court, no one died; quit acting like they did."

And so the kids and I did things like sweep the porch. (Toddlers are easily entertained.) And in the process of sweeping the floor, the littlest one found a spider in the milk can. He stayed happily occupied with that for quite some time. He went on to do things like look for other bugs. Next thing I knew, he had a leash fastened to a log and he was dragging the whole contraption down the side walk. The older two played "marching band." And happily played and helped me tidy the porch.

I was pleased to find that it doesn't take a "day away from home" to make life more fun. That you don't need a vehicle to get to a fun place. That kids don't need a trip into town to feel like the day was fun. I knew all this stuff before but never really agreed with it. My bad.

It's funny how easy it is to 'make lemonade' when you right your attitude after ~~life~~ God hands you lemons. It gives life a normalcy feeling that is otherwise lost in the fray of change and despair. And it makes you realize that life really isn't as bad as you'd like to think it is.

Life IS uncertain. But, a smile doesn't have to be.

And The Point Is....?

2009-08-28T08:39:00.004-05:00

I thought when I started back into blogging a few weeks ago, I would be divinely inspired with an ability to blog on a regular basis. It's funny how I base my plans on mere thoughts that hold no promise of fruition. Real funny.

So I tried to think up some blogging material. You know, something that held the slightest indication that it could make sense. Or be worth reading.

It dawned on me I could write about everything I've been doing offline around here. But, my life really isn't THAT interesting and I haven't taken pictures with my camera lately. So. No pictorial update today. Or journaled account of my life, for that matter.

(I have no idea where this blog is going just now and I can't guarantee anything that won't be mumble jumbled. You are welcome to go on to the next blog in your bloglines if you wish to do so. Feel free to check your friends' facebook status too. Or even take a walk out to your mailbox and see if there's any "snail" mail waiting for you.)

It's funny how in our day and age, we have to indicate what electronic device we used to take pictures. We also have to indicate what kind of specie-of-living-thing identifies with our mail out in THE mailbox (ie., snail.) Don't get lost with me here... let me explain...

You may notice I said in one of the paragraphs above that "I haven't taken pictures with my camera lately." That sounds like a rather redundant and pointless thing to point out. What else do you take pictures with, right? The question you should consider is, "What do you do with a camera besides to take pictures?" Because there are more devices to use to take pictures with than just a camera. And there are more devices to hold mail than just a mailbox at the end of your driveway.

The one device I'm thinking of in the "take a picture" department is an item that starts with "p" and sounds like "f." Real tricky clue, I know. When you get that word figured out, you are welcome to read on.

The mail thing I'm thinking about is something that starts with "in" and ends with "box." Why don't they just call end-of-your-driveway-mailbox-mail mail and that "inbox" mail stuff "instantmail" or"cheetamail" or "superchargedandfullofcaffiene racehorse mail" etc.? Why do we have to call good, old fashioned mailbox mail, snailmail? It's just not fair to change the name of something that's always been.

Seriously though, sometimes I wonder what kind of age of technology my kids will have when they grow older. Will there even be such a thing as a laptop computer? Will phones even slightly resemble the contemporary phones we have now? Will mailboxes only be used for yard decoration? Will the tires on our cars today be displayed in the next generation's landscaping just like those old iron wheels are displayed in our yards? Will you be able to open a door without pushing a button? What about chairs... will they still have 4 legs?

It's weird how technology, as nice and good as it is, only instills fears of uncertainty in some people. It doesn't always bring the kind of hope and change the computer engineers would like us to think there is.

Education will probably change too. Pencils and old fashioned rulers will be replaced with, well, who knows what. Kids will never learn how to read Roman Numerals. Such a shame. Especially since us adults use Roman Numerals everyday of the week, all the time, all day long. Seriously, what would we do without Roman Numerals?! And arithmetic... will kids even know that word? I have this feeling that math books will be condensed in fancy, schmancy, rigged up calculators. Which really isn't a bad idea because seriously, have YOU used algebra since you graduated from high school?

And blogging... will there even be such a thing as blogging 60 years from now? What if a person's thoughts were immediately flashed onto an electronic device and published to the entire world for all to see? What if there were no filter between a person's brain and their expression of thought? What if their fears and inner most thoughts about mail and education and cameras just spilled out in a mumbled jumbled form and any person subject to reading it had to decipher the logic behind it?

What an awful way to live that would be...

God Knows

2009-08-24T06:30:00.000-05:00

Life's strange twists and turns seem to be overtaking at times. But, when I remember we've been sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves, it's no wonder this ole' world can be a cruel place.

Yesterday's message in church was on being Christ's disciple and the cost that is. I've been thinking about that cost but even more so, the cost paid by the Lamb of God. As sheep we can follow a Shepherd Who Himself knew all our grief and pain. Because He Himself was the Lamb sacrificed for my sin. For your sin.

And as each pathway comes into my life, I can know without a doubt that the Great Shepherd has already gone before me and will only allow into my life what He Himself has approved.

"Everything that comes to us has already been filtered through the loving hands of our Father." (A frequent statement a dear friend shared often with me during her time on earth. After a harsh trial with cancer, she now knows the physical presence of being with her Father.)

I ran across this poem recently and thought the timing of finding it was profound...

Fear not, little flock, He goeth ahead,
your Shepherd selecteth the path you must tread;
the waters of Marah He'll sweeten for thee,
He drank all the bitter in Gethsemane.

Fear not, little flock, whatever your lot,
He enters all rooms, "the doors being shut;"
He never forsakes; He never is gone,
So count on His presence in darkness and dawn.

-Paul Radar

Seasons Of Life

2009-08-21T06:30:00.000-05:00

People talk about "seasons of life" and the way they talk, it almost seems like "seasons" only change once in awhile. But, I have come to realize that life with Alex and his two older siblings, provides many opportunities for the seasons in life to change repeatedly. Time after time. Over and over. In one day.

For instance, the day he impressed us all with his amazing abilities to survive the incredible day he seemed to have planned out well for himself, was only a fraction of the true intellect of his 23 month old brain.

Since that amazing day, he has continued to throw himself whole-heartily into the goodness that life is for a one-year-old graduating to become a two-year-old.

Forks, knives and running out the front door are three of the main things he indulges in frequently. But then, it didn't help when the front of our glass stove exploded into a million shards of glass and Alex discovered the wonderful fun that can be found by digging tiny pieces of glass out of hard to reach places. He retrieved enough of a handful that he was able to tinkle them into a large, glass jar. The sound it created was delicately delightful and he was impressed with his exploration.

This all happened in the course of time it took for Alex's mother to use the bathroom. Alex knows how to use his time wisely and the course of action he takes at a moment's notice puts even the most brave Navy SEAL to shame.

So much so that after the glass incident, I looked up from the creative musical mess my son had made with tinkling glass and I saw the hand writing on my dining room wall. It said, "People who survive the age of two, have a much better chance at living."

But I blinked, the writing disappeared and I was suddenly alerted to a new and exciting dilemma going on out in the driveway. It involved two adventurous children aiding and abetting two illegal piles of sharp tinkling glass. Glass identical to the fugitive glass Alex was attending.

Since this time, I have decided to avoid using the bathroom as that seems to only create easily-given-into-temptations and as a good mother, I have decided that my children need...

5-5-09 10:37 pm

---------------------------------

Just like that, the blog ends there. I have no idea how the author planned to finish it. Perhaps she needed to go save a life again that day. Or maybe those kids found more broken glass. Some things in life we'll never know, I guess.

I found this piece of drafted blog in my draft bin and decided to brush it off and attempt to polish it up. It's hard to polish up something that's been sitting in the bottom of a stale blog bin for over two months though.

Episodes described in the above story are common occurrences of my day. Each day is a life ~~changing~~ saving event. And we still end up with bumps and bruises and blood. It's a wonder anyone survives.

But yet, I have an inkling of a feeling that this season of life we're in now, will only last for a short time. Kids grow up and get old! The nerve of them... And instead of worrying about them playing with broken glass, parents worry about much bigger things like, um, you know, dangerous stuff like matches or... um, (that doesn't sound very scary)... Well, just fill in the blank with something really scary.

Or maybe parents grow old and worry about their kids who grew old and now play with small children that play with broken glass? Now that's something to worry about right there.

No wonder my parents have graying hair. Man! I hope my grand kids treat their parents better than my parents grand kids treat these parents.

The Subway Experience

2009-08-19T06:30:00.000-05:00

I have undocumented proof that Subway Sandwich Servers must take a "Make-Customer-Service-Not-Your-Forte" class. Across the United States of America, this great land we live in, I have had the occasion to visit ~~all~~ most of the Subways along I-80. And across the ~~board~~ land, they all have the. exact. same. customer. service. rating in my book.

First of all, the way they look at you abruptly with plastic-gloved-hands-hanging in mid air while asking you, "What kind of sandwich do you want?" And of course, since they're making you feel obligated to answer quickly by holding their arm out with a hand extended towards the bread shelf, you start stuttering and mumbling wondering what kind of sandwich you do actually want. All the while pitying their extended arm that is sure to get a cramp in it.

In your mind you can just SEE their foot tapping anxiously on the floor.

So, you say, "Uh, um, the, um, yeah, ah, what kind of bread do you have?"

And they look at you with this shocked look on their face and answer you as if you've never been to a Subway before in your life. With a quick tongue, they roll off a bunch of words and you hear something about Italian and oatmeal and flat bread and herbs.

So you pick a bread, like wheat or white since that's the only kind you know off the top of your head, and they happen to grab it abruptly from it's nestled little bread shelf and hack into it with a huge knife. And then they stare at you again.

You don't know if you should ask them how they're day is going, how long they've worked at Subway, if they like working at Subway, if they ever feel like their hands get too sweaty with the gloves on, what town they're from, etc. Before you have a chance to engage in any friendly conversation, they ask what you'd like on your sandwich with this lets-get-down-to-business air about them.

You start to answer but then realize that there's a whole butcher shop of meat organized neatly in all those little tin containers so you ask politely what kind of meat they have.

They look at you like you've never in your life even heard of Subway.

So you pick a meat and then they wonder if you want cheese. Of course you want cheese but they have to know what kind of cheese you want. You say the name of one of the cheeses they listed off to you and then they slide your sandwich quickly down to the veggie side of the sandwich bar and head back to ~~intimidate~~ help the next customer.

The Subway Veggie Specialist asks you what you want on your sandwich. And since you heard a customer ahead of you say "everything but the..." you decided to try that answer.

So with a ready answer you say, "Everything but the..." and before you can say what thing you do NOT want, the Subway Veggie Specialist happens to grab a very generous handful of the very thing you do NOT want on your sandwich before you can even say "lettuce."

You find your heart beating faster, your palms getting sweaty and your voice getting weak. With all the strength you can muster, you squeak, "No, um, ah... everyth--ah, not the lettuce though."

As you look at the veggies neatly housed in each tin container, you recognize a few other things you wouldn't like so you name off a handful of ingredients you do NOT want on your sandwich. You just know your Subway Veggie Specialist is thinking in the back of her mind, "Didn't I hear you say 'everything'?"

A squirt of oil and vinegar and a couple shakes of salt and pepper and your sandwich is swaddled up in a nice, crisp sandwich paper and with that, slid into a bag. You remark to yourself that you never thought to put salt and pepper on a cold meat sandwich at home, maybe you should try it.

And then comes the bill. You have no clue how they tally up your order or decide how much you should pay to have that kind of sandwich but you did notice the $4-foot-long advertisements in the window. At Pizza Parlors, you normally pay to have each kind of topping put on your pizza but at Subway, you hope the same rule doesn't apply. Because remember? You did say "everything on it."

When your two 6" sandwiches and half a dozen cookies and two little bags of chips comes to close to $14, you decide that maybe trying a little salt and pepper on your cold meat sandwiches at home would actually save you money.

And the feeling of intimidation.

On Hard Heads, Hard Cement and Hard Days

2009-08-17T17:30:00.001-05:00

It's one of those days where it's four in the afternoon and caramel syrup is sloppily trailing down the side of my coffee cup. And I don't care. I lick my fingers and wipe them on my lap before tapping on the keyboard. I rarely have caramel syrup with my coffee and I rarely have coffee at four in the afternoon and caramel syrup rarely trails down the side of my cup after it explodes it's self all over the vicinity of my cup when I attempt to just take a little bit. But, some days just don't go the way of calmness and collectiveness. It's on those kinds of days you need caffeine and caramel. At least I do.

Today started out pretty sweet. I had the house to myself after my ~~most amazing, dashing, handsome~~ good husband (he hates when I gush like that) left for work with our charming little son. I actually drank a civilized cup of coffee for about an hour and read my Bible and was encouraged and enlightened in several Psalms and Proverbs. It's been years since I read the Proverb for the day so found it inspiring to pick it up again.

After that, I actually showered in a very civilized manner and of all things even fixed my hair. Our bed was made, the house was presentable and then the kids started waking up. Even then, things seemed calm and collected. I felt a twinge of illness though - like slight nausea - but chalked it up to my vitamins that I had been ~~godly~~ smart enough to take earlier.

Things went fine until I gave Alex watermelon for breakfast.

Watermelon is a nutritional way to start the day and I made no apologies for it at all. Except for the seeds that were in the "seeded" watermelon. I showed Al Baby where to put his seeds on his tray (in a nifty little cup holder) and then went on to do something else.

I made a few phone calls and while trying to carry on a civilized conversation, I motioned for Janae to turn the music down in the kitchen. A lively choir of children were making a joyful noise over on the CD player and I waved my hand indicating the volume needed to be lowered. She batted at something in the air with a smirk on her face and continued singing right along.

I got off the phone and I asked if she knows what I mean when I wave my hand at her like I did when I was on the phone. She admitted she did; that I meant turn it down but then she said, "But I told you Mom to just go to the other room."

Nausea continued to wave over me and I wondered about that little box you get in the pharmacy section at the store that basically tells you if your life is drastically changing or not. I quickly pushed the thought out when I came back to Alex and found that the only watermelon seeds in the cup holder were the ones I put there and the rest were in an even layer across the floor surrounding the high chair.

Way to go, Alex. He's got the spitting-seeds-talent down, that's for sure.

Next, I washed him up (which was no small feat) and sent him out the back door with Janae. By this time, I had full fledged nausea and began to see visions of another ~~seed spitting~~ adorable little Nelson child. After cleaning up the seeds that had been planted all over the dining room carpet (whoever started the carpet-in-dining-rooms phase should have a class action law suit against them), I looked out the window to check on my healthy and rambunctious kids. They were playing quite nicely until I really looked out the window and got a better look at what they were doing and realized the situation was not good.

See, just the other day, I had neatly re-arranged all the landscaping bricks to perfectly line the edge of the wood chip part of our yard. The bricks had all been trampled and over turned thanks to small people and animals. So, I trimmed the yard up and fixed the bricks and was glad to have the yard back in place again.

The same thing happened again this morning -- the bricks were all over-turned and messed up.

The culprits were pleased though; the effort to over-turn each brick had produced an impressive sized cricket and that very same cricket was cupped carefully in a little hand and brought into my the house and placed in a nice, clean jar.

I sent the little culprits back out to put the bricks back and assured them I would not hurt the cricket.

Knowing nausea can be caused by taking vitamins on an empty stomach (check), being exposed to the flu (check), and is also the sign of early pregnancy (?), I decided to do something about the predicament and test accordingly. I can't take a test to prove that the vitamins in my stomach are indeed the cause nor can I take an at-home test to show if my immune system is fighting off a bug. But, I CAN take a pregnancy test.

So I did.

While waiting for the test results to see if I passed or not, I looked outside to check on the progress of the re-landscaping-brick-project. It was quite impressive.

"Mommy, we're building a sand castle," Janae informed me as I looked on in shock to see all the bricks were in a neat stack about 10 feet from where the majority of them needed to go. A nice, tall wall was just being finished up with Alex being the chief builder and I watched in horror as he hoisted a brick a good foot-and-a-half off the ground and at the top of the teetering "sand castle." I cringed when I noticed his helpless bare feet were within a straight-gravity-influenced-bulls-eye-shot of the brick.

I redirected Janae and went back to the bathroom to check on the test results. Envisioning an overwhelming herd of small brick layers taking over our suburbia back yard, I was quite relieved to see a single, solitary line indicating that our family has only one brick layer/landscape-project-demolish-er. At least at this point.

Another trek out the back door lead me to find the bricks in a pile. An it-looks-like-a-tornado-just-went-through looking pile.

I again redirected Janae and learned it was quite impossible for her to finish the job she started. Even though she could over-turn each brick, she was quite incapable of putting each brick back in it's place. And even though she could carry the bricks several feet in order to build a meticulous sand castle, she was quite incapable of carrying them back again and putting them in a straight line on the ground.

You see, she was hot. And then she needed a drink. And then she needed her coat. And then her feet hurt. And then she couldn't pick the bricks up. And then she needed to go to the bathroom. And then she needed to eat lunch. And then she wanted to pick tomatoes. And then she thought Alex should help her. And then she decided to throw wood chips instead.

I consistently re-directed her motives and got her to realize that she absolutely had to pick each brick up and put it back. She resisted until I told her she'd have no lunch all day if she didn't get her bricks put back.

Within minutes, she had the job completed. I was impressed and coveting 2 lines on that pregnancy test I took earlier. Which would of course indicate the potential of another ~~partner in crime~~ life-long friend for Janae. With behaviour like this, she deserves a sister, I thought to myself.

After that, things didn't seem quite as monumental as the brick episode did. It's funny how big issues like an entire landscaping project uprooted by your four-year-old, helps put all of life into perspective.

Janae's cricket did attempt to bite half her hand off just before it got loose in the house. I had no idea crickets could bite. Until today. That was quite exciting because she wouldn't let go of it and screamed her head off while it was biting her. I had to use half a roll of toilet paper just to grab it because I. can't. stand. the. way. bugs. feel. when. you. touch. them.

Then, an un-named child succeeded in damaging the bathroom sink drain so bad when they washed their hands from the cricket goop, there is absolutely no way water will drain from the sink. Probably ever again. I'm hoping this means we need a whole new vanity, sink, faucet and medicine cabinet now.

While swinging on the porch swing a little while later, I watched Alex out of the corner of my eye while he flipped over the back of the swing. I turned to look just in time to see the top of his cute little head, land soundly on the cement floor just under the porch swing. It was a very slow motion-ish event and turned out to be a pretty emotional moment. No one has ever done this on our swing before so I'm wondering where he got the idea from.

After that, we came inside and while I gave cooking instructions over the phone to one of my stay-at-home-mom colleagues, a shattering crash shook the house. I inspected it immediately and upon investigation found that for reasons beyond what human reasoning can compute, a cord to a little lamp sitting in the corner of the dining room had amazingly wrapped itself around a chair leg. When the chair was moved, as is oft to happen to a chair at the dining room table, the lamp crashed to the floor. And voila! it broke the glass shade. Just like that.

A guilty child, who shall remain nameless for now, expressed audibly that they really did need that chair and they said it in a tone that basically confirmed they really didn't care about the lamp. The now shattered-with-glass-pieces-in-the-carpet lamp.

I happened to talk to my husband right around that time, you know, the father of all these healthy little children, and I informed him that if he came home to a telephone number on the dining room table tonight, it was the number to the daycare I took the kids too. He just said, "Okay, sounds good Honey! Gotta run!"

Shortly after that, Janae helped herself and Alex to the bottle of vitamins in the fridge. She seems to have taken hers and Alex's health in her own hands and I guess they'll be good and healthy for sure now.

As I was changing Alex's diaper before nap time awhile later, his clean diaper completely disappeared.

"I put it in my trash can," Janae said with a smirk on her face as she saw me frantically tear around the house looking for one of the THE very last diapers we have in the house right now.

With that, I plopped the two of them in their beds and went upstairs to ~~take a break~~ vacuum fleas. A lit candle, a cleaned up house and reclining on the couch all make me think that I just may still be part of the civilized breed of occupants in this house. Even if I do have sticky fingers from my out-of-ordinary cup of coffee on what I hope will always be an out-of-ordinary kind of day.

But, what really did me in was the fact that just as I'm completing this blog, Janae woke up from her nap a little too soon. Soon as in, only-an-hour-long-nap type of soon. After eating her snack of buttered raisin bread, she found my Blackberry, attempted to delete my call log and succeeded at putting buttered fingers between my phone glove and my phone.

"Janae, don't touch Mommy's phone!" I wailed as I wiped smeared butter off the little Blackberry keys, "It costs a lot of money!"

To which she replied, "No, phones don't cost lots of money; only houses do."

She went on to say, "Then, don't put your phone where I can touch it," in an attempt to excuse her disobedience. She then wandered off and scraped the paint off the built-in hutch in our dining room with her bare finger.

I sigh and and wonder where the paint can is so I can patch the white scrape on the hutch. Of course I was planning on painting today, right? And I muse to myself, while she stands here giving me all the reasons why she really needs a sucker, that the test I took earlier actually could've had two lines.

Sweet.

About That Facelift...

2009-08-16T10:52:00.002-05:00

Just so you ~~privileged~~ bloglines.com readers (or other such blog reader support-ers) know that you should come directly to my blog at www.coeurdcourt.blogspot.com

I would hate for all my hard work to go un-appreciated, if you know what I mean.

On The Frontline with Fleas

2009-08-14T06:30:00.000-05:00

I know it's rare that I blog anymore so it's probably rare that anyone reads my blog anymore. It's probably better this way because there's a topic on my mind that I think I'd probably like few people to know about.

So why blog about it for all the world to see, right? The only ~~excuse~~ reason I can come up with is because it's therapy for me. Seriously. ~~It beats having to pay my therapist this week.~~

You see, I am blessed to live in a wonderful country. America's my home and for that I'm grateful. The city I live in is a cute, little country-farm-folk-mid-western town with a cobblestone street right down the middle of town. The lawns are well cared for. No gangs roam the streets. Mangy dogs are unheard of. The neighbors are kind, thoughtful and considerate. Everyone keeps our town looking modern and civilized.

We have electricity, running water, carpeted homes, dishwashers, wash machines and freezers. We have indoor kitchens complete with a refrigerator and some of our sinks even have a garbage disposal. We have air conditioned homes and vehicles and a reliable heat source in the winter. We lack nothing when it comes to civilization standards and nothing in our town reflects anything close to a third-world-country-type issue.

Basically, we appear to lead a clean, sterile, modern life. It's all so perfect.

But, despite living in our nostalgic little town with all of our modern conveniences, the house on our street that we call home inhabits an infestation. A horrible infestation.

It's so bad, we find them in our beds, our carpets, our furniture. We finally put a bounty on them and anyone willing to catch one and drown it, gets a penny. One hunt will get you over $0.65, easy.

You can stand in different places of our house and feel like your standing in popcorn. Or feel like sand is being thrown at your feet. The infestation thunders your skin with it's existence and you feel like a giant, living pin cushion. Or like a lab specimen that gets it's blood drawn on a constant basis. You feel like the lively hood of an entire population of something sub-human.

You itch constantly. You fidget consistently. You can't stand to be in your house. You know, that place you call home.

The infestation I'm referring to is called, fleas.

So. We decided to exterminate the fleas and get "flea foggers." We planned the day accordingly, arranged the house just so in order to fully utilize the foggers and we followed the instructions carefully. You have to keep your house sealed up for 2 hours while the foggers fatally fog the flea's family farm's factory and facilities.

The fleas only got worse. They upped flea larvae. They increased flea bites. They attacked the victims of this house with even greater vengeance.

So. We decided to exterminate the fleas and get stronger "flea foggers." The kind of foggers where you seal the house for 4 hours instead of 2. And you set 8 off at once instead of just 2.

I stripped all the beds and piled the bedding in the middle of the living room. I collected all the throw rugs and piled them on the bedding in the middle of the living room. I gathered chair pads and throw blankets and piled them on the rugs piled on the bedding in the middle of the living room. I picked up any fabric-type object under the beds that could possible be a flea factory and piled it on the chair pads and throw blankets piled on the rugs piled on the bedding in the middle of the living room.

There was an Eiffel tower sized pile in the middle of the living room.

It was a big job collecting all that stuff, cleaning out under beds, moving furniture to get to hard-to-reach places and I was tempted to give up because it felt so futile. And exhausting. And pointless.

But, then another flea would bite my ankle and I'd remember once again why I was on this mission.

Before you start on a flea raid, I found that it helps to do something like fix your hair or put on a cute skirt or spray some perfume because you'll then feel at least half civilized.

With a vengeance we attacked the fleas. 8 bombs went off at once and we fled our house for several hours. We patronized a local laundromat and activated 17 loads of laundry. We folded it all and neatly piled it in laundry baskets. And in random stacks around the van.

Upon arriving home, we aired our house out, like the directions said, before bringing the kids back in. While opening windows in the few short minutes I was in the house, a words-can't-describe-how-terrible-he-is flea bit my foot. The fleas are undaunted!

After the house aired out, Toby and I meticulously vacuumed all the rugs and carpets, steps, mattresses, cushions, nooks, crannies, you name it. Fleas continued to bite. We carefully made the beds with only the bare necessity blankets (I have a thing for a pile of blankets on a bed) and bagged up the rest of the blankets and quilts in large plastic garbage bags.

The fleas continued to bite.

To this day, they have only worsened. If I go on a blog strike again, don't take it lightly. Maybe give me a call or text or email or something just to make sure we haven't been taken hostage. Or carried off as war refugees.

Nothing would surprise me, really. These fleas are possessed and certainly the cause of our sure demise. I'm ready to put a for-sale sign up and sell our house as a scientific lab to some poor college student who is researching the evolving species called, the flea. Or maybe just send a notice to the city clerk that our house should be condemned. Not sure the city clerk would care to know but at least I'd feel better informing someone that our home has become a flea bag and we're the unlucky victims that get to live in it. And the city clerk does sound like an official sounding name for an official sounding person.

So. With that, our therapy appointment has ended. Come back soon for another life changing account of this far-fetched-flea-fairytale. The festivities are sure to continue.

My Blogging Debut

2009-08-13T06:30:00.001-05:00

So, I decided to make a come back. You know, a come back to the blogging world. I have nothing to blog about today but since I do have a blog, then certainly I'm entitled to blog about whatever I want. Even if it means to blog about nothing.

My brain is like a wilted flower that got too much rain and then stood in the sun for too many days without rain until it got completely dry and then was suddenly watered on by a dog. Just kind of limp and burned out and wilty. If you don't know what that looks like, plant a flower, over water it for 6 days and then set it on the picnic table to dry out in the sun. When it's dry, set what's left of the flower out in the middle of the yard and just wait for a willing neighbor dog. Take a picture and tag it with my name. Now you have an idea.

There's no reason why I'd have to look like this either. Or feel like this. I mean, we did only have a nasty cold for a week and if Toby wasn't getting me up during the night to mumble at me in some strange language, Janae was trying to slip into MY side of the bed for a middle-of-the-night snuggle. Not to mention the fact that my normal eleven-o-clock-bedtime was rudely switched to 2am. I know; my bad.

But that cold was sure a doozy. We all had it but my dear Toby had it the worst. He didn't take too well to my doctoring abilities since I also was under the weather and seemed to fail to remember any type of effective cold treatment. I caught him guzzling cough and cold syrup right out of the bottle one day and ~~soundly scolded~~ effectively reasoned with him as to the anti-health benefits of such practice.

When my head cleared a bit, a faint memory of something called Bite A Man Sea flashed a merry tune in my head. I kept hitting my forehead trying to remember why I was experiencing Deja vu all over again when it dawned on me that the memory stick in my brain was a little coated with ~~snot~~ cold drainage and I was hearing the message unclearly. So, I de-coded the message and sounded out "Vitamin C!" I took that as a sign that I should give Toby some vitamin C. And I continued to do so until the promptings ceased.

The kids fared pretty well. They all got sick a few days before their parents did so when we were at our sickest, the kids by that time were back to feeling pretty perky. Real perky. Like, poop-all-over-the-house perky. Of course it would figure that I'd get a phone call at the same time, have a text to respond to on another phone and find out right then that my husband was leaving for the rest of the morning. I've tried to space out such abnormal happenings in my day but it never works. It's like the phone call just can't wait for the poop to get cleaned up and my text blocker just doesn't activate automatically when it's obvious I'm doing 23 other things right then.

Sunday rolled around and we were desperate for social interaction. You know, like church or something. Of course, hacking and sniffing and blowing snot everywhere wasn't a very presentable way to go to church so we decided that just getting out of the house would be the best idea.

We went to the lake and got a good dose of sun, 'presh air' (as Landon calls it) and water. We caught a couple dozen little fish because Toby accidentally dropped his line into a school of fish. I didn't know fish went to school on Sunday. Come to think of it, maybe they were having church...

Apparentely the preacher was preaching on the dangers of hooks with worms. Or maybe it was a teacher teaching the class on what to look for in a worm. Either way, Toby was an excellent assistant and aided the preacher/teacher in teaching the church/school the dangers of fishermen. The preacher/teacher used that time to inocculate the audience/class to the wilds of a baited hook and since each one of the parishoners/students were too young for the frying pan, the preacher/teacher was confident they would learn their lesson AND gain permanent freedom. So now there's an entire church/school of fish in a lake in Nebraska that will never bring joy to a fisherman's heart thanks to the hands-on, life-lessons they learned that day.

We played "catch and release" for an hour or so and the kids were thrilled with each little fish they pulled out of the water. I did the honors of pulling the hook out of the fish's mouth and was pleased with my abilities to handle live fish, bloody worms and staring at fish tonsils over and over. While I did that, Toby was casting in another line and setting the next kid up for their fishing experience. The four of us had a regular system down while Alex ate sunscreen fresh out of the tube. He's a little over cautious about the effect of a sunburn on his tongue.

My late grandpa, who was an avid fisherman, would be impressed with my fishing skills. I owe all my ~~luck~~ talent to him. I think it's genetic because nothing in me enjoys pulling sharp objects out of paper thin lips and reaching my fingers into toothless mouths of living things while they stare at me with huge, beady eyes. But when it comes to casting the line in, well, we just won't go there yet. (My Grandpa would NOT be impressed...)

The wind was blowing pretty strong that day (welcome to Nebraska) and there were ~~hundreds~~ several speed boats on the lake. That combination made for some pretty impressive waves. Bear in mind that I've never been to the ocean so it doesn't take much to impress me when it comes to waves. Even my bathtub can produce some pretty sweet waves.

The combination of the beautiful day (it wasn't too hot), the sound of the waves, the 'presh air' and the nice time to just be out together like one little happy family on a lake, made for a peaceful and relaxing day.

Not to mention that subconsiously it created many blogging moments. Which gave me a ticket back into the blogging world. Which is a good thing since how can a blogger have a blog if they never blog like a blogger should?

"I'm back," said the little fish as he swam swiftly from the treacherous shore. Never mind there's a hole in his lip and his scales are a little messed up; he's off the hook and no longer a fish-out-of-water. He's happy to dive right back into the life he loves.

And so am I.

Watch Out....

2009-08-12T18:08:00.002-05:00

A face lift can only mean one thing, right?

Stay tuned because I have a hunch the blogger is back!

Repost: God is Good

2009-07-25T11:00:00.001-05:00

I originally posted the following on February 3, 2009 but I believe it to be a true depiction of my thoughts these days. Someone who will always remain close to my heart was diagnosed with Stage 4 Bone Cancer. She has weeks to live.

She is nearing the time of her departure, unless God works a miracle to keep her on this earth a little longer. But her reward in heaven is great. If it hadn't been for this dear soul, I would not be a believer in Christ. I feel I owe a level of gratitude nothing on earth can compare to. And that's one more reason I look forward to seeing her in heaven one day.

I grieve but not as one who has no hope. I grieve for her children, her husband, her young grand child, her pain. But I hope in the promise of eternal life. May God comfort their hearts and restore their pain with peace...

Death.

It's one of those subjects most of us avoid talking about. It makes us uncomfortable. Uneasy. Sometimes fearful. The unknown of what our future holds is too heavy to think about.

But death is just part of life, really.

It's ironic how death can effect you even if you or none of your loved ones die. It can be a story told to you by a friend. An article in the newspaper. A glance at the obituaries.

What always gets me are the "untimely" deaths as we seem to classify any death that happens before age 75. And we stumble around, grappling in the reality of the cruelty of death and ask, "Why God?"

While observing the most tragic story I have ever heard, I kept stuttering those 2 little words... "Why God?" And then it dawned on me as I reflected on the brevity of life, the cruelty of death and the utter desire for destruction that the Evil One has for each one of us, God is not the author of confusion. He does not find joy in tormenting our lives with sorrow. He is not even capable of filling our lives with sorrow. He is a God of good.

In the beginning of time, God gave man free choice. We have the right to choose what we like. What we don't like. What we want. What we don't want. He made a point of proving that we have such a free choice in life when He sent His Son to earth and let us decide what we wanted to do with the Jesus of Nazareth.

And in the process of time, we took the very life of Jesus and wrenched every drop of blood from His body to prove that we were in control. That even God's own Son could not reconcile our vile hearts to the God of Love. And God let us.

What we didn't realize was that every drop of blood that was spent, did not drop into a forgotten vortex of time and eternity. It was collected and saved for the remission of our sins so that even while we were dead in our hearts towards the love of God, that love was still attainable through the very Son we destroyed. That blood was collected for me. For you.

All we had to do was take it in repentance and forgiveness of sin.

But yet we live in a fallen world. We have free choices. We decide our eternal fate. We decide what we will do with that Jesus of Nazareth. And God wills it that way because He gave us that choice.

That choice came when sin entered the world. When the Evil One told the first woman in history that she could be like God if she just disobeyed His one simple command, man then became like God. Since that day, we see the destruction of evil and we see the glory of good. Not to the extent that God does but close enough to understand that God obviously had the greater knowledge of such matters to begin with. We have regretted everyday since that desire to be like God. To know like God. To see like God. We can't handle the reality of cruelty. Of death. Of pain. Of loss.

We are human. We lack the infinite ability of thinking powers that move us on from today. That give us a glimpse into the future. We work to put food on our tables just for today. We work to bring up the stock market. We work to avoid the probability of death. Of grief. Of pain. But, God's work involves an eternal life that far expands a drop of the drop of the tiniest droplet in the expansive bucket of time.

In God's world, time has no end. In our world, time is everything. And when time ends for a living soul on earth, death has won. We can't contemplate the cruelty of separation. Of loss. Of grief so sharp that even taking a breath of air is an effort beyond a natural ability to just breathe.
Then we ask, "Why God?"

And God sits on His throne comforting broken hearts and grieving for the loss of our joy and wishing we could understand as He does. To understand that when sin came into the world, our free will forced the process of life and death. That pain and suffering was not His plan. That God did not make man to be alone.

Satan is the prince and the power of the air. Yet God is the life that lives within us.... "... And God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Just like we forced the very life out of God's Son and assumed we had finally conquered a power greater than us, so Satan moves to destroy our physical lives in hopes of conquering a power greater than himself. He is the accuser of the brethren. The crux of all evil. The end of all good. His motive is to condemn, break down and destroy.

The capability of God to protect and defend us is often confined to the eternal soul. God promised us everlasting life and that life is beyond the kingdom of this world. And He protects and keeps our hearts for His kingdom. His power. His glory. Life on earth is a passage to Heaven and God's will is that none would perish but that all would have eternal life. We don't live in eternal life until we soar beyond the confines of human flesh and blood.

The blessing of love. The companionship of marriage. The beauty of life manifested in the birth of a child are all the goodness of God that can still be enjoyed in a sin-fallen world. They give us a taste of perfection and what our bodies were created for: eternal life.

But, we will never understand death while we still live. Death is a comprehension of knowledge beyond the human brain of our understanding. We were not designed to know death. To experience death. To see death. To cause death. Man is a "living soul" and God's design made it that way. We can not embrace death because nothing within us can welcome the shards of pain that death is.

The fact that death hurts is because we are not inoculated to it's powers. It was never intended to be understood but because of our free choice over the process of time, we have all experienced death in some way. Whether through a family member or a close friend or a spouse, death has visited each one of us.

When the "Why God" questions crowd our minds, the reality that God does not design sorrow and does not thrive in our grief should be ever present on our mind. Considering we live in such a sin-sick and fallen world, we should ask "Why God?" when we close our eyes at night in the arms of our lover. When we go to sleep knowing that all is well in the world we live in and the circle of people we inhabit.

But, since we think it's normal to experience complete goodness, we don't notice the luxuries of life like health and safety and the love of a life-long spouse. Why? Because God created us to live, to be, to desire, to have everything good.

And death is not a part He originally created us to have in His perfect blue-print of creation. Because death is cruel. Death hurts. Death separates. Death destroys. Death is the epitome of evil. It is the opposite of good.

We will never understand the purpose and planning of death. Why? Because only God has conquered death. Because God is only good.

FLEXIBILITY 101

2009-07-23T11:00:00.001-05:00

If I could, I would take a class that would give me an education on the #1 important ingredient to life, health and the pursuit of happiness. And that ingredient I would learn would be called:

FLEXIBILITY

My highly educated teacher would lecture on the following statement:

"We all realize that there are more than just ONE important ingredient to life just like there's more than one important ingredient in chocolate chip cookies. Take flour for example... flour is usually the first ingredient listed on the ~~recipe~~ requirements for cookies. We all know that. Another important addition is baking soda because it's vital to the leaven needed to produce a slight raise in the structure of the cookie itself. The chemistry the baking soda produces causes the cookie to manufacture fibers in which it raises at a certain temperature and then conforms and holds to the shape it grew to. We also need sugar. Sugar appeals to the taste buds and takes the cookie out of the "health food" category and puts the cookie in a "dessert food" category. This is important to the life and welfare of the cookie because how many meals in our country today automatically offer a "health menu" at the end of the entree? None. But you will find a "dessert menu" offered at most diners today. This is important to the production and consumption of each individual cookie destined to be created. But chocolate... chocolate is vital to the purpose, the value and the final completion of the chocolate chip cookie. What would the blend of flour and baking soda and sugar be without chocolate chips? It would be a lump of flour, baking soda and sugar. This is proof we need chocolate, students."

Of course, the point of the professor would be understood by all and it would so obviously apply to the topic in our class that day: Flexibility. It would also apply to any student studying how to become a professional chocolate chip cookie maker. And it would appeal to the general public that insists on funding the production and education of good chocolate. It would be a great class to take because so many people with so many different educational pursuits, could benefit from such a knowledgeable professor.

The tests I'd take after that class would reflect my understanding of the concept of Flexibility through the professor's thorough presentation and I would probably pass the test with flying colors... like a parrot passes by high in the sky.

My education of this would give me strong beliefs that being flexible should effect our everyday life like the h2O we drink effects our general health. Without flexibility, we will never learn how to bend over backwards. And we all know how handy it is to bend over backwards when we need to reach the floor behind us without turning around

Flexibility will influence the following:

How and when we look at freedom... "Do I need this shower or am I just looking for a break?"

How and why we look at fat... "Do I need to lose weight or do I just not like the way my stomach bulges and folds and hangs over my waistline."

How and where we look for fun... "Is there true purpose in an expensive vacation or do I just not like getting the mail everyday?"

How and what we call our favorite... "Am I eating this ice cream because I like it or is it truly my favorite?"

These and other attributes play into how we're flexible.

When we're flexible, we eat ice cream because we need a break and can't find the bathroom under the pile of toilet paper the two year old piled in the toilet.

When we're flexible, we walk to the mailbox every week or two so we can check the "in a weekly exercise program" box on the doctor's form.

When we're flexible, we enjoy noticing the way fat clings to our bodies like a school of jelly fish because it helps take our mind off the beach side vacation we'd really like to go on.

When we're flexible, we enjoy being cooped up for days in our house with sick kids because we embrace the slogan, "Freedom is never free."

Flexibility lends itself in many different ways to our perspectives, our entertainment views, our attitudes and our over all mental health.

Like when your daughter comes gasping and banging and pounding on the door, hardly able to catch her breath so she can ~~scream hysterically~~ tenderly call for her mother. And you get to the door and you find her wildly hopping on her feet like she's painfully jumping on hot coals. You notice she's gasping and huffing like something horrible is happening and you realize she's possibly getting her feet chopped off. And so you ask her what's going on in her young little life as she bounces energetically in a six foot circle on the cement porch floor. And you ask with concern in your voice because you care for her well being and you want her to know that you really do think she's a normal child. You articulate your question carefully as if an acting-out-of-her-mind-child would be able to answer your question sanely because you enunciated the 't' in "WHAT HAPPENED."

And she replies in a breathy way, like a jogger sounds when they're jogging, "H-h-h-h I h-h-h-h-h-h h-h-h-h-hurt h-h-h-h-h-h-h my-hhh-h-h-h fo-h-h-ooo-h-h-ttt h-h-h-h-h." (translated: I hurt my foot.)

You observe her with a keen eye and notice that the foot she's huffing about would have to include at least one of the two feet she's bouncing wildly on.

Because you forgot that stand up comedy usually has some form of sense and sanity to it, and you really don't want to go crazy from all the excitement your children cause in your life, you find yourself laughing hysterically that your child would choose to express her pain in such an energetic and healthy way. While using the banged up, chopped off foot to propel her into the air.
Flexibility gives you the ability to accept the comedy of the situation as you turn to go back inside the house while your banged-up-foot-child bounces off the porch and down the steps, nursing what she believes to be a badly hurt foot. While jumping on it.

Flexibility forces you to see the obvious when all you notice is everything that's not there. Like when your son drills you about the moon as if he thinks you're some scientist or something. He begins a breathless string of questions on if the moon could crush the house and what would happen if you shot the moon and does the moon roll and how does the moon just stay up in the sky and does it just 'stick' there and how big is the moon and can you shoot the moon, can you?

Flexibility helps you see that your child is not a mad scientist even if he has every indication of becoming one.

Flexibility helps you understand the deep and vast brain behind the erratic and usually irrelevant questions.

Flexibility helps you embrace the opportunity of gazing lovingly into the pool of dark brown eyes that look up to you and sincerely believe with all their heart that you, of all people, are the wealth of knowledge they've been searching for all of their 5 little years of life.

Flexibility is such a great tool to carry through life and something everyone should get a PHD on. An education in Flexibility would give great resume references because everyone would want to hire the Flexibility person.

But, I would learn that Flexibility forces you to understand that you will probably never be able to take a class on Flexibility because there is no class out there devoted primarily to the topic of Flexibility. Flexibility is just too hard to teach. Frankly, flexibility does not fit in a box or a text book. It's just too flexible to do so.

But by accepting this hard, cruel fact, I am proving my understanding of Flexibility.

And I'm flexible enough to accept that I will never get an education on the #1 important ingredient for life: Flexibility.

Dogs Really Don't Go To Heaven After All

2009-07-07T06:45:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I have those days where nothing seems to go right. I wake up in the morning to the sound of the dog barking and kids frantically chattering. That's a bad sound combination to wake up to. I've learned 2 things from those kinds of days:

#1: Always wake up before the kids

#2: Never sleep later than the kids

As I looked out the window on that bright sunny morning that I just happened to commit both ~~sins~~ mistakes, I saw a limp, wet, thing hanging haphazardly out of the dogs mouth. Upon closer inspection, I learned it was one of our cat's kittens. Only it was missing it's head. And heartbeat. And a few other necessary things needed for life and the pursuit of happiness.

You try waking up and the first thing you see is a headless, dead kitten hanging out of your dog's mouth. Seriously, try it. See if your day turns out nice.

After bucketing the fragment of the once-cute-kitten, we went inside for breakfast. I pretty much had no appetite after seeing that disgusting kitten but the kids seemed undaunted. In their enthusiasm to eat, an entire bag of cereal spilled gracefully all over the badly stained carpeted dining room. Which, reminds me... don't get me started on carpeted dining rooms because I really don't have too many good things to say about them. Or the people who would even think to put carpet in a dining room.

From then on, the day went down hill. If it wasn't one catastrophe, something greater and more dangerous was happening. Of course it sulked me into a "why is this happening to me" mood which made me feel guilty because I frequently like to remind myself of all the true hardship in the world and the fact that I really have NO hardship at all compared to other mothers. Like my poor mother cat... her darling baby had just been killed by a ravaging dog. At least all my children's heads were accounted for.

Seriously though, there are mothers all over who have it far worse than I... either they live in a battle torn country or they have a terminal illness or their children have all died or they have no home to raise their children in or they have no loving father to share parenthood with or they have no understanding of how to raise children or they're lonely childless women, arms aching to hold a child. I knew I didn't have it bad so I scolded myself soundly for sulking.

It was also about 100 degrees that day with full sun. My brave husband was battling a high, hot roof a good distance away and being the good husband that he is, I wanted to reward him with a cool refreshing drink.

So, I packed up the kids, departed from our comfortable air conditioned house and we began our little journey. Now, in case you think this seems mild and peaceful and mothering and kind, I think you should understand that you have no idea what it's like to ride in our van when all the kids are in there. And they're not sleeping. Or eating.

First of all, they yell (in order to be heard, of course), "Cold air on please" over and over until you turn the cold air on. And "cold air on please" literally means, turn the thermostat to 60F and turn the fan on full blast. If you adjust the fan at all or make the air slightly stray from freezing cold, you will immediately hear a simultaneous, "coldaironplease" chorus from the back of the van.

And they do this of course, to survive because if for some reason there should be any trace of anything warm in the van, they will surely die of a complete heat stroke. So we "coldaironplease" all the way to our destination and we "coldaironplease" all the way back home again.

While their hair is standing on end from the force of air blowing on their little heads, they begin a series of lessons. They question about all the deer in the woods. And what would we do if there was a bear trying to get in our house. And how many lions are probably over in that field. And what kind of thing is that tractor pulling? And why do we have to take the semi road? (Interstate) And why are they building a field with all that dirt? And "Mom are you going speed limit?" And what kind of plants are in that field? And what would happen if we turned the head lights off and drove in the dark. And WHO put that moon up there. And do skunks bite?

You must understand that these questions are being bombarded to the front of the van over the roar of the A/C fans. If there's any music or radio on at the same time, they just yell their questions louder. If they can't hear your answer (which is typical), they will repeat the question as many times as they need to. Pretty soon everyone in the van is hollering and yelling in an attempt to achieve ultimate communication and we travel merely down the road like one, little, happy family.

Alex chimes in quoting a phrase from a little "Old McDonald tractor" that goes, "Uh-oh, I can't drive" when you put the cow or the duck or the pig in the driver's seat. Like a broken record, he repeats that over and over from his cracker crumbed carseat.

It usually goes like this until Janae has to puke, which happens on any ride over 5 minutes long. There's usually a mad scramble for a cup or a bag or a box or a something to toss back to her. She then hangs her mouth over the cup or the bag or the box or whatever it is and sits there mostly quietly for the rest of the trip, giving us a running dialogue on the puke situation.

Funny thing how she never has puked in the van, except for the one time she was sick with pneumonia. The puke-into-object is completely psychological and we only give it to her for her own peace of mind. And our sanity. Hearing, "I need to go puke" mile after mile gets a little disturbing. The situation is purely mental on her end but anything to squelch her mad puke panic gives us a better ride. And helps us not go mental with her.

Of course, on such days as we were having that day, Landon and Janae gained another 7 notches in their brain capacity and began to delve into the deep questions. Like "where's hell?" And "how do we go to heaven?" And "how do we sin?" And other such brain exercising questions. While mentally trying to lead my children through the Romans road... or some other such process of salvation, I was rather overwhelmed by their barrage of comments revealing their understanding of the whole situation.

Meanwhile, I was trying to stay on the road and find the job site with no directions. And little cell phone coverage. And no GPS.

I was deep in thought and trying to capture the moment to the best of my ability. I mean seriously, when someone asks you how to know God, don't you just tell them? Realizing that my children are quite young and have a very impressionable mind, I had to make this moment count. I thought I was answering them well enough until I heard Janae start tattling...

"Mom, Landon is going to send me to hell... Landon is going to send me to hell... Mom, Landon is going to send me to hell..."

I scolded Landon and assured Janae no such thing would happen.

He argued back, stating he COULD send her there and would because of what she had done to him. (Some minor offence... I'm sure. I don't remember the details now.)

I explained only God sent people there and actually, He doesn't really send them; they choose to go by not accepting God's love for them.

Landon had a reason why Janae fell into the same category and assured Janae again he was sending her to hell.

In case you are concerned about my son's ability to show love and forgiveness, you need to understand he had no concept of hell at that point. Hell was just a bad place for bad people. And in the process of understanding his mind on the subject and the fact he wanted to send his sister there, whom he really does love, I grew to understand a child's idea of God, hell and heaven.

My mind failed to reach into the innermost parts of my being and recollect a good way of explaining to my kids right then in the middle of our errand HOW bad hell was, WHY people go there and WHAT God has to do with it. So I copped out. I told them both that no one knows for sure where hell is.

The bright and brilliant boy in the back seat exclaimed, "Well, I can find it then and Janae's going there."

Keeping myself upright in my seat in order to keep from pounding my head on the dashboard, I concentrated on not driving off the road. My head pounded from the noise and din of the van and I was overwhelmed with the responsibility of cementing into my children the concept of a loving God, heaven and hell. It was a complex situation and as I explained in even greater detail how BAD hell is and how GOOD God is, I realized even more that in order to really understand the horribleness of hell, you must understand the loveliness of God. And when you understand how loving God is, you have a better understanding of how awful hell is. Both go hand in hand. I kept it simple and filed the whole topic away with plans to bring it up later.

I thought they understood it all better and felt content with the level of understanding in the conversation. I was equally pleased Landon was no longer sending Janae to hell and was relieved to have that discussion over with. As we left the job site, I heard an ongoing argument happening over the din of the fans in the back seat...

"Janae, listen to me: Elly (the dog) is NOT a Christian," Landon said, quite strongly.

She retorted with a smart remark and made Landon even more firm. He sighed heavily to reinforce his statement and said, "NO Janae: dogs CANNOT be Christians!"

Landon seemed to be handling his own but I backed him up. We began to discuss that dogs aren't Christians, therefore they're not going to heaven. Who would've thought on a mild little errand to bring water to their daddy, these 4 and 5 year olds would explode into such complex little beings?

As we "coldaironplease" all the way back home, deeper and more difficult questions circled our little van. After completing our errand and putting the littles down to bed (which was no small feat), Landon and I went out back to bury the kitten.

After listening to him eulogize the kitten all day about how she was his best friend and how nice of cat she was and how much we needed to shoot the dog's brains out since she wasn't thinking when she killed the kitten, I assumed the burial would be somewhat emotional.

It wasn't.

Landon recommended putting a sign up for everyone to read that said 'the kitten was buried here.' When I constructed a little cross, he thought that was a neat sign to put over the kitten's grave. That way no kids would dig a hole right there and end up digging up the kitten, or so he said. He was really concerned about stray neighbor kids digging a random hole that would end up right over that kitten. She stunk badly by this time so Landon wanted to be sure she stayed under the ground where no one could smell her.

As the day drew to a close, I ended up making another errand up to my hard working husband. He asked me to bring supper up to the crew working so I obliged and made the trek again in my "coldaironplease" van with my chattering children. On our way home, I listened to a story on the radio about a man who's wife and 4 children were swept away in a flash flood.

Just like that, his perfect, wonderful world was gone. Gone.

It was pounded into me again that as long as I have my dear children and adoring husband surrounding and overwhelming my life with all their goodness and personality, I am one blessed woman. Never mind the fact I feel like pounding my head on the dashboard. Or wake up to a dead kitten. Or grow tired after listening to a barrage of questions about the moon. Or hell. Or dogs being Christians. Life is good.

And you know what? Even if dogs really don't go to heaven, life still is good.

That Dysfuntional Kitchen

2009-06-18T08:05:00.006-05:00

Sometimes I get this overwhelming urge to ~~tear~~ remove the cabinet doors off my cupboards. Other times I feel ~~obnoxious~~ adventurously diligent to scheme a way to take down the wall that slices our kitchen into tiny fragments of square footage. Other times I strive to be content by merely loading the dishwasher which results in a more open feeling since the 3' of counter space no longer is covered in dirty dishes.

These urges come when I sense myself being suffocated by the closed in feeling my kitchen boasts of. And pretty much anything would make it feel more open.

I've toyed with the idea of moving the fridge out. Seriously, count how many cultures you know of that don't have a fridge. They survive, right? Just think of the counter space I could create where the fridge sits now!

I've thought about using a hammer and hacking air holes into walls. But I knew my carpenter husband wouldn't like the unprofessional look that would give.

I've put off baking and doing any major cooking. The results usually produce tight quarters and insufficient food any way.I even accidentally removed the entire front glass from our stove. That gave me about two extra inches of knee space in the vicinity of the stove but it also eliminated the insulation feature on the front of the oven. I learned fast that burning your knee once is all you need to always take an 18" bypass of the stove every time you waltz through your kitchen.

I've dreamed of creating an outdoor kitchen. But that would cost more than removing that wall that makes my kitchen a tiny cracker box. And what would we do about the flies?

I've threatened to ban myself from the kitchen. You know, the whole "out of sight, out of mind" theory? That doesn't work when mealtime rolls around and everyone wants food from the kitchen.

I've resigned myself to experience my kitchen as a Shrine of Contentment. On the stove I daily sacrifice my unthankful spirit and offer up my 5'x8' kitchen as a piddly incense. I wear a smile to brighten up the dark corner of our house we call our kitchen in hopes of making up for the poor lighting. I've determined to forgive the manufacturer who created the homogeneous light that takes up half the ceiling but only gives off about 13watts of brightness. Seriously.

I inch around the kitchen like a sardine in it's tin can. Only using the bare minimum of space for the traffic I create from one side of the 5' wide room to the other side. I've realized I can basically rock from side to side in order to use the sink and stove at the same time. I've looked for ways to find convenience in my kitchen. But it ends up resulting in the same disappointment a convenience store gives - seriously, how convenient is it to spend $4 for a bag of popcorn you could get at the grocery store for 99 cents?

That's how my kitchen is. It's like a convenience-store-four-dollar-popcorn-bag disappointment.

I hear Scandinavian Open Shelving Kitchens are the in thing. Did you know that? I didn't but when I heard it, I knew it had to be true. I mentally calculated how I could bring Scandinavian hope to my Cave Man Kitchen. But the problem remained. That wall is just in the way.

See...

There's no place to put open shelves unless I remove the fridge and the stove. But what would a kitchen be without a fridge or stove? It would be a utility room. Or a wet pantry.

So, I sigh and remember the many cultures that don't even have a kitchen. And I wonder what they'd be able to do with a kitchen like mine. It dawns on me that really the only thing I lack in my kitchen, isn't space or counter top. Rather, it's a I-can-make-this-work attitude.

But man, how much better I can make this work if I didn't have that wall in the way...

When Life Changes, God Doesn't

2009-06-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

It all started the day we... well, I'm not sure exactly which day that was, come to think of it. Hmm. It must've been a big day though because it sure started a lot of stuff.

Then again, maybe it wasn't a big day. Maybe it was just a normal day with nothing out of the ordinary happening. Funny thing how it is when you sit down and look back at life and remember an era filled with bumps and bangs and bruises but yet you realize you can never pin it back to a beginning. A turning point. Or even a period at the end of a sentence.

Life just changed. Just like that.

But then you remember back to events that took place. Events that turned out to be individual steps on a certain stairway in life. And as each event unfolded, a new step was created where you found your life at. Then suddenly, the stairway ends and just like that, an era has ended. Life goes on and you go with it.

I know I'm speaking ~~pathetic~~ poetic and mysterious but certainly, there has GOT to be a good reason why I haven't updated for a month or two, right?

On a side note, I have completely recovered from Mono, hosted company ever since my recovery, put in a garden, reorganized my house, planted flowers, worked on landscaping, took a 22 hour round trip, saw Lake Michigan and watched my husband turn another year older. Not to mention a few other activities.

It's been a good year but not unmixed with sorrow. Realities of religion and the grace of Christ have been two of our main focuses, the latter more than the former. God gently leads His dear children along and we have vividly seen His hand leading those He calls His own.

To summarize the happenings of the last two months, is hard to do in a nutshell. And hard (if not unwise) to do on the world wide web. It's kinda like ripping a scab off your skin and saying, "Okay everybody, have at it!"

A few of you have wondered what's happened with my blog and why I haven't updated for so long. I am open for any dialogue or discussion done privately as for the reasons I've been away for so long. My blog isn't about personal details though (besides Alex chasing the cat with forks, etc.).

Oh, and in case I didn't convey this right, there was never any intention on NOT blogging nor do I plan to quit blogging in the future. My mind was just too full of other things to be able to digest anything worth typing out on blogger.com. It would've read something like this: ";lkj iowop ijhen ipfld polk dpoks..." A pile of used kleenex probably would've sat on my desk next to the computer on one side and the shelf in front of my head would've had a head shaped indentation where my head had specifically been put a time or two (or three). A browser window for a Bible study reference site would've been tabbed to bloggers tab while I blogged and I would've copied and pasted most of the Bible into my blog (I would've left out the battle scenes in the Old Testament. And the genealogies.) Oh and coffee... there would've been tanks of coffee fueling me on. By the way, if anyone wonders what Bible site is the easiest to navigate when you're studying half the New Testament at once, www.biblegateway.com is worth your look. I've been at that site in the last few weeks more than I've been to my bed.

I am excited about life. About God. About the gospel. There is peace and calm in my life where that had been confusion and strife. I am hopeful about the future. For the first time in a long time, the future looks bright and certain.

And I've experienced the promise of John 10:10: "Jesus said, "the thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

Do YOU know Jesus meant that verse when He said it?

On Alex, Forks and Cats... and other things

2009-04-30T23:00:00.001-05:00

Today is one of those days where you make coffee in the morning (as usual) and then by mid-afternoon you make another pot (not as usual) in order to survive.

And no, I'm not dealing with the pandemic flu scare either -- I am educated and well informed as you can be too. Nor am I under stress or overwhelmed with circumstances out of my control.

Rather, I am merely surviving. Swine flu has nothing on me today, seriously.

It all started this morning when this little 2 1/2 foot-tall guy was tenderly carried upstairs in his daddy's arms. The darling little stinker had WMD (Worst Morning Doo-doo) and since that can tend to wreck havoc on the surrounding air circulating our home, I knew it would be the traditional WMD if I didn't do something about it fast.

It was either change the diaper or light a bonfire of scented candles to cover the awful small. I knew the candle part wouldn't be ideal since we do have small children in the house so I opted for plan A: change the diaper.

That's when it all started.

He refused to be cleansed from his ~~iniquity~~ putrid, dirty diaper. Knowing my child would love to spend the day with doo-doo smeared all over his as-soft-as-a-baby's-butt butt, I denied him the privilege, crossed his boundaries and cleansed the tender skin of the harsh toxins that naturally make up WMD. I was also thinking of the house, which I know is selfish of me.

After that, everything just went down hill from there.

He mutilated his much-starved-after banana, smearing entrails of banana on his tray. Yes, "banans" (as Alex affectionately calls them) have entrails. I'll take a picture next time if you don't believe me.

Then I gave him a strawberry. A delicious, juicy, RED-all-the-way-through, strawberry. He took a few chomps, chucked a bite under the dining table (which was across the room from where he safely sits in his high chair) and then slung the rest across the top of the table, smearing the whole way until it landed in front of his sister. It left an impressive trail of nice, juicy, red juice.

(That boy has quite the throw. And aim.)

Entwined through-out the banana and strawberry feast were loud, robust, healthy, deafening shouts of "MOM!" If you want to know what it sounds like, tell the person sitting closest to you to shout "mom" as loud as they can. Then ask them to repeat that for at least 20 minutes. And then hope your phone rings so you can try to carry on an important conversation with an important person. But make sure that the person sitting closest to you continues to yell "mom."

Around that same time in the morning, the originally planned appointment for later in the day to have our gas line repaired (since our house was beginning to smell like a propane plant, thanks to some leaky pipes), was suddenly moved to 5 minutes from right then. A path needed to be cleared through the toys ~~artfully arranged~~ left laying on the family room floor.

By this time, Alex was standing on his high chair tray, still yelling, shouting and hollering "mom."

Now, Grandpas are a great thing, they really are. And when it comes to having 2 1/2 foot-tall people like Alex around, Grandpas are a REALLY great thing. Amazingly enough, we actually had such a Grandpa on hand to rescue Alex from his high chair and set him free to have the run of the house. Alex was happy and so was the Grandpa. They had a brief time of enjoying the morning together and admiring each other but then as soon as Grandpa stepped away from his desk, Alex returned the favor Grandpa had previously shown him and proceeded to climb up to the desk and tear apart random pieces of important things. Grandpa was amazed with Alex's speed and swift thinking in handling the opportunity to sabotage Grandpa's important desk.

(Grandpas are too forgiving and very biased.)

After that, Alex climbed up to the silverware basket and with a look of glee and contempt on his ~~innocent~~ determined little face, he selected a sturdy fork and trailed the cat down. I'll leave you to your imagination as to what happened next because I'm sure you understand that a 2 1/2 foot-tall person, a fork and a cat are not a good combination. Especially when it's all located behind the couch.

As I continued to tackle my day... cleaning the bathroom, making lunch, saving the cat, answering phones and cleaning the kitchen... Alex kept his schedule going as well. He made a trek to the basement and checked out Toby's computer, offering a few insights on the important business document Toby had open in Word. Or maybe that was Quick Books? Whatever it was, Alex had it done in less than 7 seconds so obviously the program isn't very child proof.

Alex was greatly interested in the kind gas people that were here to repair our old gas lines and showed his appreciation by climbing their ladder and checking out their tools.

Then he came upstairs, sat ~~sweetly~~ smugly next to the very-bloated-with-pregnancy-cat and held onto her tail in a very affectionate manner. It was a very strong bond. As in a I-will-love-you-forever-and-never-let-you-go kind of way.

Soon after that he became ravenously hungry for cheese and demanded a piece of the moldy cheese I was carving off of a cheese block. So I put him in his high chair, selected a pinch of healthy cheese and allowed him a good protein snack. Of course, that was all after he said "please" for the cheese.

That arrangement went well until Alex's dear and favorite sister innocently snitched a single string of the pile of cheese on his tray. He voice broke out like a rash on a poison ivy victim.

Over lunch time, Alex refused to eat his cheesy mashed potatoes. I coaxed him. I forced him. I urged him. He refused the bites of food or would take take them into his mouth, mix a nice blend of saliva with the spuds and then smear the entire biteful out on his hand. Like lotion. He also soaked himself with the leak-proof sippy cup of water proving that even sippy cups now days aren't child proof.

When his dad came home (after I had labored fruitlessly on training him to eat his food), Toby simply looked at him and said, "Alex, you take a bite." Those were 5 magic words that Alex understood to mean, "I must shovel my food in now or I may forever lose all of my third-born privileges in this family."

Disheartened by my lack of ability to train this child to eat a small pile of mashed potatoes, the Grandpa assured me not to worry; he said it's the male image that a father has which imparts godly fear on a young child. Bummer for me since I don't tend to have a very male image.

As the afternoon rounded to a close and nap time began to appear more obvious in the horizon of this beautiful day, Alex disappeared. Enjoying the lack of ~~stress~~ excitement for a few brief minutes, I tried not to be too anxious as I looked for him. He had been under Grandpa's bed earlier affectionately chasing the cat the down so I wasn't too worried. I comforted myself with the illusion that he was still there and hoping that cat was smart enough not to be there.

Just then Alex came screeching across the house at top speed with wet hands. He's such a smart little inventor and his energetic spirit towards life is so inspiring. Unfortunately, I noted immediately that he was heading directly from the bathroom.

Upon investigation, the bathroom I had just scrubbed down earlier was in need of more cleaning. A yellow-tinted color of liquid blended with the water in the toilet bowl and around the perimeter of the toilet there were flecks of generous sprinkles of liquid. It all had a familiar faint tinge of a certain smell too.

Nice. What an adventurous child I have.

So, I disinfected his hands first and held him at the sink trying to control the water pressure as he lunged for each faucet handle and showered himself and the vicinity with a powerful spray of water that neither he nor I nor the vicinity expected.

After that, my mind went blank. Overall, I have vague memories of ~~swimming against white water rapids underwater~~ finding him at the top of the bunk bed ladder 2 seconds after I turned my back (something he's NEVER climbed before) and I have another memory of him escaping out the front door, across the porch and down the steps all within the perimeter of about 9.5 seconds.

He continually peppered his daily activities with affectionate cat care, close examination of important documents on Grandpa's desk and snatching food items out of the fridge in a blink of an eye.

Fearing for his life and concerned with the wild adventurous nature Alex had suddenly possessed, I denied him anymore opportunities to try his hand at more inventions.

With a bright smile on his face and soft, cuddly "ganky" under his chin, he drifted off to slumber land while I groped feebly to the faint smell of coffee wafting through the air in my mind's nose.

So now you understand why I'd make coffee in the middle of the day and enjoy it to the fullest with rich, creamy caramel syrup, cool whip, a shot of caramel flavoring and real fresh whipping cream. And you'd also understand why I didn't feel guilty while drinking it: Alex gives me every reason to enjoy life to the fullest.

Just look at his example.

Confessions of a Mom with Mono II

2009-04-17T20:33:00.009-05:00

I am thinking of starting a "Moms with Mono" support group so that Moms with Mono will have a place to go for information and support on how to deal with Mono while being a Mom. Not that I think I have all the support or information that a Mom with Mono needs to cope with life but that's my point: I don't. I need a support group.

Of course, this support group would have to be located in a cyber sort of place since all Moms with Mono know how hard it is to get out of the house ~~just to nab their two year old from the street~~ just to get the mail so to have to GO someplace to get help for mono, would be a contradiction. I mean seriously, if you can GO to a "support group" while suffering with an infection in your body, you probably aren't feeling very sick. But with mono, you do feel sick. So you stay in your chair and surf for "Moms with Mono" support groups.

Me: Hi. My name is Courtney
Group: Hi Cooourtneeeey!
Me: It has been 2 days since I've had a fever.
Group: Yay!!! (cyber claps -- whatever those are)

I spend a lot of time in a soft chair with a warm laptop on my --you guessed it-- lap. I dream about laundry and lysoling my house and vacuuming 7 day old cookie crumbs and cleaning the toilet all while trying to slurp down coffee, which by the way, tastes disgusting now. And as I sit here, I realize I'm a changed woman: I don't like coffee anymore. This makes me sad and perpetual sadness always makes me depressed and depression always makes me crave a dark hole with a bowl of worms in it. And then I just want to eat dirt.

So I do mental exercises called TTB (Think The Best) and chant to myself, "think the best, think the best, think the best..." and such as and therefore. Rome wasn't built in a day so why should I get better in a day, right? I just worry that my java pot won't forgive me...

As I sit and rest and try to relax (yes, those are three very different things) I have learned a lot from reading, talking (phone) and more reading and deep thinking.

First off, just sitting doesn't cause a person to rest and simply sitting and resting doesn't cause a person to relax. You have to ~~get rid of the kids~~ set your mind to just stop thinking before you can relax and make your rest worth wasting time sitting over. (Yes, I thought long and hard over this paragraph.)

Now, for me to enjoy sitting and allowing my body to rest thus finding a way to relax, I have to feel somewhat productive. So I've taken up a few hobbies. Namely one called, Researching The Web On Any Topic That Interests You.

:: I have learned how to compost guinea pig manure and what cold compost means. Now to just be able to get out in the garden...

:: I have studied my Bible at lengths and in directions I haven't had the occasion to study in for a long, long time.

:: I have realized that my stove has not turned on in days, thus proving that the time I'd spend cooking, I'm spending resting... thanks to dear friends who have cared for us so well.

:: I have fallen asleep while laying on the deck in the sun; an invigorating nap experience. And no, I didn't over heat or become a lobster. Vitamin D is good for me, you see.

:: I have learned that sitting in one position in your recliner for 1 1/2 hours will make you feel like you just ate Thanksgiving dinner. Weird, I know.

:: I have learned a lot of stuff.

And now, slowly as I get my strength back, I enjoy the freedom to not be confined to my chair and laptop so much. I'm amazed at how good one feels when they don't have a constant fever. I am glad to see the callouses on my thumbs from opening the ibuprofen bottles are finally gone. And I don't feel the overwhelming "you'll never get better" feelings anymore either.

But, I have to say from one Mom with Mono to another Mom without Mono: enjoy each fun hour you spend playing with your kids at the park. Moms with Mono would give anything to not have to pay to spend time with their kids like that. My next milestone is just that. To stop paying for something I already spent hours in labor for: my kids.

I can tell I'm getting there. Watch out world...

"WARNING: This Building is Under Baby Monitor Surveillance"

2009-04-14T10:30:00.001-05:00

Our house is fairly small in it's structural frame but it boasts a sound barrier feature few homes are capable of possessing. And though it is ideal for certain times of the day, there are other times when it's not so nice.

I'm thinking specifically of the 9pm to 9am time frame that's it's not so nice.

In our house, all members of the juvenile category typically take up residence at 9pm in their segregated rooms: boys go to the boys room and girls go to the girls room (we only have one girl; the plural part of "girls room" is something yet to be born.)

Then the adults have free time to relax, clean, sleep, do a project, etc. The sound barrier feature in our house is so functional you could even take up a vacuuming hobby or tackle that Tchaikovsky piano piece you've always wanted to play.

But, then when all is dark in the house and everyone is in their own respective beds and rooms, it is physically impossible (without sonar hearing) to detect any sound coming from the juvenile quarters of our home. So, unless the child in distress shrieks loud, long cries from his room or just comes upstairs, turns on all the lights, strips his night clothes off and sits at the dining room table screaming his head off while re-enacting an alien abduction, his cries are not heard. (A scene played out more than once by a certain child in our home.)

That's where the Baby Monitor comes in.

A great invention, the Baby Monitor is, keeping parents informed of all subtle and secret noises coming from rooms undetected by the natural ear yet not transmitting any sounds into the sleeping children's rooms.

And last night was the first night we slept with peace of mind knowing our home was under the listening ear of the Baby Monitor.

As the last glow of light dimmed to complete darkness, Toby fell asleep and I was attempting in my feverish pursuits to follow soon after. The quilt and down comforter and other quilt and heavy pillow sitting next to me coupled with the warm, sleeping man on the other side of me, all were helping relieve the shivering air I felt in my cozy bed. And just as soon as I began to feel comfortable and a bit dozy, a sound began to come through on the Baby Monitor.

That was when I wished we had a sign on the outside of our home saying, "Warning: This Building is Under Baby Monitor Surveillance" because all non-illiterate potential intruders would read that sign, and would never succumb to the title of "Intruder" but would remain innocent bystanders or perhaps be part of the Moonlight Joggers Association.

The sound was identical to a steak knife chopping a bedroom window lock. Or similar to a screw driver hacking a hole into plexi-glass window panes. I never heard the aluminium window blinds hanging on both children's bedrooms windows ~~for security purposes~~ give their signature metallic rustle. I also never heard gun shots either so I assumed if the intruder was indeed using pre-historic measures to enter the premises of our home, I predicted I had ample time to address the situation in a post adrenalin frame of mind.

That's when the sound stopped.

The warm, sleeping man laying next to me let out a guttural sigh in his sleep about 7 minutes later. It was identical to what the potential intruder downstairs would've made and in a mad frenzy, I almost ~~grabbed a broom~~ went in stealth mode and snuck down stairs just to make sure the intruder ~~didn't take another breath~~ really wasn't an intruder after all but then I remembered that the sound didn't actually come from the Baby Monitor but rather from the warm, sleeping man laying next to me.

My heart resumed normal beating.

Several minutes later, the chopping sound began again. Apparently the potential intruder had taken a bit of a coffee break between attempts at breaking open my children's windows. I laid there wondering how long it would take for the steak knife to get dull or the aluminum window blinds to send me their signature signal.

The sound stopped.

Several other mysterious noises transmitted clearly over the Baby Monitor for the next few hours. A machete scraped a metal lock somewhere in our basement. The classic metal on metal made me realize the intruder had upgraded his tools-for-the-trade and would soon make an appearance.

Alex cried a time or two and in my fitful sleep I failed to recognize the risk his life was in considering that if an intruder would be lawless enough to break into a sleeping home, he'd be cruel enough to pluck hair from my baby's head leaving him to writhe in agony.

With each vocal sound heard over the Baby Monitor, the warm, sleeping man laying next to me would jump from his pillow and loudly declare a string of unintelligible long words at the Baby Monitor. A sense of urgency would overcome him but he'd always fall back on his pillow and toss himself back into a fitful slumber of sleep.

At one point, Alex made himself known loud and clear on the Baby Monitor and shivering under the blankets held tightly around my neck, I poked the warm, sleeping man next to me who was uttering garbled English words at me that I didn't understand. I plead with him to check on the youngest member of our prodigy who was being heard routinely over the baby monitor but my requests were met with noncooperation.

He stubbornly refused since he's a second born, you know.

As my fever progressed into the night, my mouth became perpetually parched. Weird dreams playing over and over in my head finally thrust me to the edge of my bed in a sitting position. I groped to the bathroom and then to the kitchen for a cool drink.

Disgusted that my second born husband was too stubborn to go down and check on our wailing child earlier, I clung tightly to a heavy bathrobe and stumbled down stairs, shivering with a fever.

Amazingly, all was well in each child's bedroom.

As I was just turning around to leave the girls room, a wild haired and wild eyed man dashed into the room. His manly composure signaled he detected certain danger yet he groped undirected around the room.

It was Toby. I scolded him quietly, expressing the fact I would've never come downstairs to check on the kids if I would've known he was going to do it anyway.

He apologized profusely, explained he never heard me ask him to go downstairs. He seemed quite sympathetic towards his feverish wife so I excused his behaviour and forgave him because I'm just that way.

As we headed back upstairs, he scratched his head and with a confused look on his face said, "I came downstairs because I thought I heard something."

A wonderful thing, that Baby Monitor is.

Confessions of a Mom with Mono

2009-04-09T21:02:00.004-05:00

Mono is a funny sounding name for a virus that I've done very little research on. I'm not sure if I'm a) scared to find out what I'd read or b) would feel helpless once I did know more or c) just too tired to read online for that long. For whatever reason, I'm not well read up on the topic.

But, I have lived, breathed, slept and sweated a mono-type virus for the past 3 weeks so I think that's why I'm self certifying myself to write these Confessions.

Mono attacks the immune system (I do know that) but how and why, is unknown to most (if not all) people. I have never been in contact with someone who has a virus like mine nor do I randomly drink out of random cups of random people's drinks when I'm randomly in public. I don't even drink out of public drinking fountains, for that matter. Mono is typically spread through saliva so you tell me how I got mono if I haven't been kissing random people or drinking out of random cups.

Mono has a constant fever pattern that is physically draining although the pattern is inconsistent. Some days I wake up sick; other days I wake up well for a couple hours. Some days my fever is only 99; other days I have a hard time keeping it away from 102. Coupled with that is extreme fatigue, a pounding head ache, frequent dizziness and growing physical weakness that seems to get worse every day.

Opening the fridge takes effort. Screwing lids into place is hard. Locking doors is a strain. Rolling over in bed is a huge job. Walking hurts, even slowly. Talking is draining -- my voice takes muscles I don't have. I feel so weak.

Little accomplishments are noticed though -- like tonight I made mac and cheese for supper and felt like the world's best gourmet cook. And I did it all while the ibuprofen I took 8 hours before was wearing off. I even washed the pans. But, even though it seems like success, that's physically exhausting to the point of it not being worth it. I pretty much just have to go to bed after that.

Mono also attacks your brain (I do know that from personal experience). Everything is a big deal and either leaves a Mom with Mono in tears or slumped in a dark hole of depression or both. Like at night when my husband puts the kids to bed, as soon as everyone walks out of the room, I burst into tears mourning the passing of another day in my kid's life that I didn't make any worthy investment in. The guilt. The fear. The sadness. The loneliness for a fun family night. It's a heavy load. And the brain power it takes to process these feelings has completely deserted me.

Spiraling into a whirlwind of what I'm sure are pointless fears, I find myself growing steadily lower. And then I start worrying about things like if I'm pregnant or not and finally after worrying about it for 2 days, I breathlessly take a test. I've never prayed so hard that the double lines would not appear. Shoving the memory of the frequent 102 fevers into the back of my head, I wait anxiously, telling God, "No baby should have to go through this! No baby should have to go through this!" I have never been so relieved after finding a negative test result. That to me was actually a little confirmation that God is still good and does know what's best for me. And for my children.

Rain or shine, the weather doesn't really effect a Mom with Mono. It's all alike to her. It all seems grey and gloomy. Although sunshine does feel good on a warm day, the brightness of the sun and the blue sky seem insignificant to the dark day it feels inside a Mom with Mono: if you can't enjoy it with your family, what's the point?

Resting and drinking fluids are easy to do for mono victims. I am so thirsty and so tired and could drink all the time and sleep forever. Of course you can't rest much when you drink a lot so the balance is usually soon found when dealing with mono.

And then come the aches and pains of laying in bed for so many hours out of a day. It feels like slats or springs or hard object are protruding from my pillow-top mattress and needles are sticking in my feet. So angling my legs in a different direction, I find temporary relief only to learn a little later that both feet are sleeping. If I google mono-type viruses, I'll find out if bad circulation goes with the virus. Otherwise, I see now how people get bed sores from being in bed for long periods of time.

It may be recommended to exercise which is something that would feel good to do in this warm, spring air. Yet even when I feel like doing it, and then do it, I spike a fever and suffer for several days, slowly getting back to the point I was before I exerted myself. Rest and relaxation are all a person with mono can do... poor circulation or not.

And finally, remembering that even though I may be helpless to care for myself, helpless to care for my children and helpless to care for my husband, God is not helpless to care for me AND all I care about. I confess thankfully that I am finding moment-by-moment comfort in that.

Disclaimer: I do know that I do NOT have the Epstein Barr Virus Mono and there is a bit of a difference between that and what the doctor diagnosed me with: a Mono-type virus. From what I understand, my spleen is not effected like it would be with the "main" mono virus which is caused by the Epstein Barr Virus.

On Fevers, Fortuneless Fate And Felines

2009-04-02T06:30:00.002-05:00

I don't tend to focus on my feelings when composing a blog post but today's post is the product entirely of intense, aggravated feelings.

Now that you've been warned, read on.

So, I had the flu. No big deal, right? Having the flu SHOULDN'T be a big deal but for me, it was. The main reason was because I had 3 quite healthy children in my house every minute I was sick.

Okay, so I thanked God for their health and I didn't want to discredit their healthy approach to life but man, it was hard to keep up with their approach.

Miracle of miracles, somehow the day had ended with a completed laundry project. That in and of itself is an incredible feat. Even for a healthy person. All my laundry was done, folded and put away. And as I patted myself merely on the back and thanked the good Lord for helping me achieve such an unreachable goal, I decided to tackle the avalanche of toys in our house.

Now, even for a healthy person, that is not an easy task. So to be unhealthy and achy and sore, this experience was unlike anything I had experienced in a long time. Actually, I think I've read books about people who scaled impossible mountains but it's been awhile since I had such leisure reading time so I could be wrong about my recollections of such unbelievable success.

By sheer instinct, I tackled the toys.

After telling Janae ~~5,000 times~~ a certain number of time to pick up a certain toy, I realized she'd pick it up (if I was lucky) and them move it to a new location (if I was luckier.) But, the toy was never put away. That's the key word here folks: putaway. I noticed a lot of toys were also being moved but not putaway. (I know that's two words but for the sake of simplicity, we are combining them into one single word.)

That was it. I had enough. It was over.

I charged across the basement to a neat roll of trash bags and declared war on all the toys. As many toys as possible were going in a garbage bag.

Now, when my little kidlets saw my ~~anger~~ righteous indignation towards the cavity of toys (ie., toy box), they became quite concerned. In their effort to save as many toys from being cast into everlasting darkness, they began picking up toys quite rapidly and shoving them safely in the crooks of their little arms.

Lest you think I am a hard hearted mother who routinely throws her children's prize possessions (ie., toys) away, don't come to such a harsh conclusion so fast. These toys were not going to be thrown away. They were not even going to be GIVEN away. They were being permanently put away until I was ready to deal with their avalanching powers again.

But, my poor children only saw the trash bag. And the toys going into the trash bag. So, of course, they imagined the worse: a massive dumpster heaped high with bags of toys... watching the dumpster roll away and head towards the local landfill.... huge graters rolling over their bag of toys at the local dump... shredding their toys to tiny slivers of plastic and shards of doll hair leaving only their precious memories locked safely in the sorrowing little hearts of my children. (Wow, my poor kids could honestly have nightmares over this.)

I, on the other hand, imagined the best: a clean room. And not just ONE clean room but two! And not just two clean bedrooms but a clean family room! Which of course would mean the whole house could stay clean! And toy free!

Boy was I giddy.

In the process of time, I ~~stressed~~ explained to the children that I was putting the toys away that they never played with. After they saw that their favorite toys were remaining and that life wasn't quite as bad as that plastic garbage bag threatened it to be, things went much better after that.

I was just finishing in the boys room and noticing the pleasant aire my children now possessed since their home life had suddenly become much more predictable and somewhat Proverbs 31-ish without the reoccurring experience of one stubbing their toe on a stubborn tow truck or tripping on a stray jump rope or sinking their heal into a sink hole of sharp legos, when suddenly, my hand lighted on a damp comforter. A smelly damp comforter. A smells-like-cat-pee damp comforter.

It was at that moment in time that the earth's axle quit spinning. Time stopped. Air ceased to exist. Water dried up. Blood pooled to the top of my head. And I had a heart attack. Right there in my son's bedroom.

As I took a deep breath, everything began to turn again. A flame of energy sparked my temper. I was livid. I was angry. I was mad. A stupid cat had invaded the cleanliness of my home and I was helpless in her evilness on my abode. I was seriously quite mad. This point can't be stressed enough. But I tried to stay calm. You know, take it in stride like perfect mothers do all the time.

When the clock started ticking again, things proved to be far worse than initially thought. The cat's URINE had not only showered on the blanket but it had also penetrated another comforter. And an entire set of clean sheets. And the center of a once-clean mattress. All was saturated in the cat's URINE.

Truth be told, I had 3 more loads of laundry to do. And in my flu-ridden body, I had no energy wherewith to summon the lofty goals of duty. But, duty called and I attended it's beckon.

As I washed laundry and scrubbed the mattress and washed another load of laundry and continued to scrub and color-safe-bleach the mattress, my kind and ever thoughtful ~~cat loving~~ sympathetic husband asked if there was a repellent to put on the mattress. You know, so the cat wouldn't "do it" again.

Expressing a little more feeling than intended I assured him there was a repellent.

"It's called lead and you put it right in the cat's head," I blurted out, "They never do it again after that."

Now, the only thing (and when I say only, I mean THE ONLY thing) that kept me from using the repellent right then was because I knew if I shot the cat in the head, it would end up a bloody mess. And another mess was not what I was looking for. Plus, I didn't know how to load the gun and I naturally assumed my usually helpful husband would be unwilling to help me learn that task right then.

So, for the next two days, I shopped for pet urine cleaners and washed the mattress and dried it with a fan and re-washed it again. And set the fan up to dry it again. And made sure the cat didn't visit it again. And finally put the bed back together.

As the fever cleared my brain, life began to seem a little more livable again several days later. Actually, now that I think of it, the fever is back and I'm not better like I planned on being. And the mattress never did get 100% clean. And the cat still roams the house freely. But, the one redeeming factor is that I can look back on that fateful day though. And looking back is a whole lot easier than looking on to it. Especially when such harsh feelings of murder possess your usually kind hearted being and drive you to imagine the worst terror techniques with which to plague your cat with for peeing URINE in an inexplicable place.

But we all survived. Even the stinking cat.

Home Education: A Lifestyle of Learning (part 1)

2009-03-31T14:30:00.002-05:00

"So are you going to home school or send your kids to school?" a question we are often asked as parents of pre-school children.

"Oh definitely home school," is the conditioned response that I say, wondering how there could be a different option. Then I remember that there are local private schools and even small town public schools both of which are ready options to our family.

Yet, homeschooling is the only option for us. The only choice we'd pick. Ever. It only seems natural that we would go that way, especially since both Toby and I are home school graduates. But, that's not the reason why we home school.

I love the idea of homeschooling. The opportunity to teach my kids to read, to count, to write, to... you get the idea. So when people ask me if we'll home school or not, I wonder what part about us doesn't have the "we're home schoolers" sign on it.

Then it dawned on me that according to our culture, home schoolers seem to have a "stereotype" personality and pre-schoolers don't typically exhibit that demeanor so therefore, they are exempt from the "geeky home schoolers" group and held up on a diving board that just may give them the luck of jumping into the public school education opportunity.

But nope, our kids are ready to launch into the vast orbit of home education. An education custom fit to each child based on personality, learning style and life goals. An education not limited to work books, text books or even a deluxe curriculum. An education uninfluenced by peer pressure, bullies and gym style sports.

People assume that the reason home schoolers home school is because they're afraid of blending their kids into a public social life. They want to shelter and isolate their kids. Protect their offspring from society. That is not our purpose at all. Our kids will have a social setting complete with friends their age, the option of organized sports and music lessons and the opportunity to make new friends all the time. Friends, games and "real" life are not found in a classroom: they're found in life that's not confined to an age group. Or a school grade. Or a social status.

And after a weekend attending a local home school conference, I feel renewed in a purpose, zeal and direction in homeschooling. In a handful of blog posts coming soon, I hope to capture a few of the highlights both Toby and I experienced at the conference.

Leading up to the conference, I felt overwhelmed. I knew there would be a huge number of booths to visit. Curriculum to peruse. Work books to pick out. Seminars to hear. So many things to take in. A big part of me was actually nervous to go. "How will I know what curriculum to pick?" was my biggest question. And the question that I wanted so desperately to answer because I KNEW that would be the final end to our pre-homeschooling journey.

Guess what? I left without having that question answered. And ironically enough, it's the last question on my mind now. Why? Because the purpose we have as a homeschooling family isn't going to be found in a work book. Or a curriculum. Or an answer key. Those things are some of the tools to bring the end result of education but they're not the only thing. I was inspired by this quote:

"Never let schooling interfere with your education." (Mark Twain)

Our goals in home educating our kids are summed up in a 3 step philosophy that was described by the director of Institute for Excellence in Writing, Andrew Pudewa, during one of the seminars:

:: Character
:: Knowledge
:: Skills

These three things are not taught in a work book. Or even in the best curriculum. They are taught in a balanced approach to education. Without character, knowledge and skills are futile. Without knowledge, character and skills are not retained. And without skills, character and knowledge are not communicated accurately. Here again, work books and curriculum can help to bring the results of a Character-Knowledge-Skills education but they are not the one and only option. Nor do they guarantee success in education.

The public school system has set up a status quo that all children from the ages of 6-17 must comply to. This concept is confined to a "conveyor belt education." And once a kid lags behind or even falls off the conveyor belt, he is pushed back until he can catch up.

Equally damaging, if a kid happens to go faster than the conveyor belt allows him to, he is thwarted and limited in his learning. He can't reach his full potential as an individual.

Public school offers a lot. They offer a one-size-fits-all learning experience that doesn't address who the kids are as an individual. The example was given that a 10 year old automatically has the number 4 on all his work books. If he can't keep up with the studies in his book, he gets behind. Behind what?! Work books are notorious to being too slow for a child. That results in a bored kid who is learning a fraction of what he could be learning. A work book can also be too fast for a child which of course produces a frustrated kid who hates school.

Many home school parents think that if they can create a learning environment at home comparable to their own schooling experience they had in a classroom, their kids will feel like school is important. That school is fun. That school is separate from mundane home life. Obviously, it is very hard to not do to our kids what was done to many of us who were raised in public or private school. We think an education is found in a work book and as long as our kids complete their work books, pass their tests and never lag behind other kids their age, they are successful home school kids.

A speaker (Andrew Pudewa) at the home school conference (whom I have quoted subtly several times in this blog already and who is MUST to listen to if he's ever in your area) has a degree in teaching. His concept and knowledge of the English language is above average. But, he admits himself that his "greatest handicap is his own education."

It was freeing to listen to his Two Step program for home school parents that get frustrated and wonder if they have the option of sending their kids to school. Parents can take this test before they make the decision to put their kids on the bus:

1:: Read all the text books your child would learn

2:: Sit through one day of class and observe the setting, teaching style and potential teacher and classmates

If you can approve of steps 1-2, you are ready to send your kids to public school.

Though private Christian schools are usually seen as a better option than public school, they still have adapted the one-size-fits-all methodology of teaching. The Conveyor Belt method is commonly used in these classroom settings as well. Competition is the driving force of our children's education. Many home schoolers have also taken this approach to educating their kids at home and hope to come up with different and more positive results than the public and private school settings. We can't do the same thing and expect different results.

So, answering the "will you home school or send your kids to school" question is an easy question to answer. It demands a yes-or-no type answer which is quite easy to give. But then there's the next question: "Why don't you send your kids to a good Christian school?" Up until this past weekend this was a little harder for me to articulate. Now I have the answer,

"Sometimes doing a good thing is the enemy of doing the best thing."

And that's why we'll home school.

Highlights Things I Learned While Being Sick

2009-03-30T06:30:00.000-05:00

:: If your regular body temp is barely above 97F, and you happen to find out that you have a body temperature of 99.6F, you are definitely sick.

:: When you suddenly feel achy all over for no obvious reason, you have either come down with the flu or you have the first symptoms of an incurable terminal illness.

:: Ibuprofen is God's gift to mankind: use it wisely and take it rarely.

:: Just because you feel better after taking ibuprofen, don't fool yourself into thinking that you are indeed better. It's a hoax.

:: Pesto sauce is good to eat when you're sick. It can't look any worse coming up as it does going down.

:: End-of-day frappiccinos are a good way to lift every one's spirit. And use up milk that will otherwise go bad tomorrow.

:: If your head hurts, your eye sockets are charged with pain, your eye balls shoot shards of agony down to your toes, the backs of your legs have that post-marathon-ache to them and you'd just rather sleep all day, don't worry: you have the flu.

:: Blogging in bed is not for the weak. Trust me on this, I know.

:: Just because no body believe you're sick, doesn't mean you're not sick.

:: The longer you keep the old fashioned mercury thermometer in your mouth, the higher the mercury rises. Weird.

:: If you're sick of being sick, don't use the mind-over-matter method on yourself. It doesn't work. You will end up sicker.

:: If your symptoms disappear for a few days and you think your better, watch out.

:: A dull, throbbing back ache, 99.6F fever and a post-marathon ache in your legs are three prime symptoms of sickness. Especially if you haven't run a marathon any time recently. Just be glad your eye sockets are better.

:: Vacillating between being cold and hot is a good practice system for young women. I bet it helps prepare you for menopause.

:: Never underestimate the power of a shower. Take one every hour to keep from being sour.

:: Short term memory loss is synonymous with a fever and it's not, um, I can't remember the point I was going to make... never mind. I can't even remember what synonymous means for sure right now. I must've learned that word pretty recently.

:: If you make your bed while harboring a fever, you will automatically lose favors in your day. People just assume you must not be THAT sick if you can make your bed.

:: 24 hour flu bugs are definitely better than 168 hour flu bugs.

:: Don't think hard; use calculators as much as possible. Especially for big numbers... like how many hours are in a week.

:: If you make mental notes in your head like how you're going to get from point A to point B and you notice that point A and point B are only a few feet apart, you probably have the flu. Or a dreaded incurable illness.

:: If you think you have spinal meningitis and can barely squint at the computer screen you just staggered to in order to read the list of symptoms, save yourself the hassle: without an incredibly high fever and frequent bouts of nausea, you are fine. Well, you're fine in the sense that you don't have spinal meningitis. Welcome to the flu.

:: If you never get sick, don't say that.

:: I had a little birdy, her name was Enza. I opened the window and Influenza!

:: Don't hang around sick people.

:: When everything hurts, don't forget to breath.

:: Always wash your hands after using the bathroom, wiping your nose, scratching your back, putting on your socks, touching a door knob, licking your fingers, scratching your ear, fixing your hair, sorting dirty laundry, sweeping the floor, brushing your teeth, buttoning your shirt and making your bed. You never know how the flu is going to spread.

:: Finally, at all costs, avoid the flu.

Chewiest Brownies

2009-03-22T06:45:00.001-05:00

Our favorite brownie recipe. Even a 7 year old I know enjoys making these.

1 cup cocoa

1 cup flour

2 cups white sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup melted butter

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Batter should be very thick and sticky.

Line 9x13 pan with greased parchment paper. Spread mixture into prepared pan.

Bake at 300 for 30 minutes. Garnish with 1/3 cup powdered sugar if desired.

These brownies are a rich chocolate brownie, very chewy and not cakey at all. Note the equal amount of cocoa to flour.

Thoroughly enjoyed without frosting.

When Foggy Brains and Guinea Pigs Don't Mix

2009-03-20T07:00:00.003-05:00

Today Janae was holding our one and only breed-able female guinea pig.

And as she sat on the floor holding our one and only breed-able guinea pig in her lap, the guinea pig did what guinea pigs do: it jumped. And kinda started to run. You know, away from us.

Janae did what Janae does at all the wrong times. She just sat there. Now, had it been church or mealtime or a place and setting that requires "just sitting," she would've responded in a different manner. Or I should say, she would've likely responded in a different manner... I'm not God so how can I accurately predict the behavior of a person? Especially if the person is my own daughter, right?

As I lunged for the guinea pig and repositioned it in my daughters lap, I imagined a worse case scenario where the one and only breed-able guinea pig WOULD jump and run away and stay gone. And I mentally calculated the best formula that could be used to catch the run-a-way-pig.

In my sleep deprived, it's-been-a-long-day frame of mind, I decided the best solution would be to also let our one and only breed-able male guinea pig loose and hope he could find our one and only breed-able female guinea pig. Surely ~~fate~~ instinct would lead them together.

Then, the two of them could do, well, what guinea pigs do best and from that union would likely spring forth an average of about 2-3 baby guinea pigs and voila: we'd have about 5 chances of catching a guinea pig thus improving our chances of catching a ~~wild~~ loose pig.

My math skills have always been poor but I was impressed with the mental calculation that redundantly played over in my foggy brain that day. I concluded that our chance of retrieving a live pig and adding it to our diminished herd of guinea pigs would best be achieved if there were more than just one pig loose, but rather a generous amount of five.

As I assessed the repercussions of such reproductive activities, I wondered what the cat would think about this idea. Not that there's a connection or anything but when I thought of the cat, I was also reminded of the building inspector, should we ever need him for future projects. And what about the bank inspector should we ever decide to refinance? Or the tax assessor? Or even our friends should we ever have any of them over?

I decided an investment in live traps would be the most economical option because seriously, who wants to be involved in the topic of wild rumors of guinea pigs or to be known as The People Who Live In The House Crawling With Real Live Guinea Pigs?

For some reason, I sure don't.

I would hate to use our home as a guinea pig for what happens when guinea pigs get loose. That's not the Guinness-Book-of-World-Record's-page I would like to hold a title to. And if not even I would be impressed to hold that kind of popularity, who would?

A Feline Frenzy

2009-03-18T06:15:00.000-05:00

I live with this guy who likes cats. And since this guy also happens to be my husband, I have to choose to like cats too. The only other option available is to hate the cat. But I have a sneaking suspicion that such arrangement would leave me feeling a little stressed out all day long. And I really don't want my husband to have to deal with that.

So I choose to like the cat. End of story.

Now, if it's a nice cat that always uses it's litter box on a regular basis and doesn't tear apart the leather recliner and doesn't infest the house with fleas, I can be cool with such a cat. I guess I assumed my litmus test for cat standards was just limited to those three things.

Until recently.

Actually, quite recently.

About 4 minutes ago, I realized that a fourth requirement has been evaluated and definitely certified for the Domesticated Feline Litmus (Aptitude) Test (Exam) -- or the DEFLATE test:

In order for the domesticated female feline to survive it's entire feline lifespan, it must never participate in the practice of fertility sounds and rituals. These sounds and rituals include but are not limited to:

Vocalized purring
Incessant meowing
Loud vocalized cat sounds that sound slightly robotic
Weird vocalized cat sounds performed with lots of feline body movement
Pounding on OUR bedroom door at night (especially during the 12:00am - 4:30am range)
Insisting on pounding on said bedroom door at night
Resuming annoying cat sounds
Never stopping the vocalization of fertility mating call and feline body movement
Vocalized purring blended with ghost-like-sounding meowing
All above descriptions combined

If only I had started a college fund for my kids. Because, IF I had such a college fund, I would find it well worth it to spend on spaying this ~~about to be killed~~ annoying cat: who wants a parent who is known by the neighborhood children as the mom who killed the pet house cat with her bare hands?

I know my children sure don't. But right now, I really don't care...

"Here kitty, kitty..."

Where is the BRIGHT Side?

2009-03-16T06:45:00.001-05:00

I am greatly irritated.

I don't easily get this irritated by something that is so completely out of my control. ~~I actually never get irritated ever.~~ I actually see the bright side of something even if it seems inevitably gloomy when I first look on. This time there is no bright side for me. This time I am irritated to the greatest dimension. And that is seriously irritated.

~~When I was a little girl~~ Not long before I got married, I envisioned what my future home would look like. It would have tons of dimly lit lamps scattered through out the house and all bright-well-lit areas would demand a warm, homey glow while maintaining a healthy brightness. There was never going to be a green/blue hue to any room in my house. Except for maybe the garage since my husband would probably insist on it like most guys tend to do.

What I'm saying is I would never, ever, EVER have fluorescent light bulbs. Ever. I was a die-hard incandescent light-bulb fan. That was the only team I supported. Some people get excited about ~~a funny shaped~~ a prolate spheroid shaped ball that bounces obnoxiously if it lands on the ground but wins a player a lot of money if he can catch it, throw it and kick it right. Not me. I'm all about the light bulb.

~~My greatest hero~~ The most impressive inventor was Thomas Edison. Do you know how many times it took him to make the light bulb? ~~Think about for awhile~~ Google that and then try to grapple with the hard facts of life that all that work was for nothing. Why? Because some ~~freak~~ guy named Ed Hammer took too many trips into the laboratory and designed a complete onslaught to the world of incandescent. Seriously, that guy should drop the capitalization of the first letter of his last name, and drop a hammer on his project. Better yet, he could just drop himself on the whole thing and we all could be glad that a Hammer destroyed the sterile-mercury-infested-greenish/blue-hued world that is soon to be ours.

Oh the memories of the incandescent bulb... all the boxes and cartons of thin globes of glass that lined store shelves with the internal design created for human comfort. The glow of warm houses glittering with the brightness of one of the world's greatest inventions. The simplicity of changing out a life-well-lived bulb and swirling into it's place the newness of a white bulb.

All that's over folks.

Because of the federal energy bill former President George Bush signed into office, all incadescent light bulbs will be banned for production by the year 2014. You will now feel as much at home in a doctor's office as you do in your own home: the cold lighting will be identical. If you ever find yourself in jail, don't worry; the ambiance won't be any different than your own bedroom. Stores, hospitals, gas stations, convenience stores, they'll have the same thing in common with your own home: a green/blue glow.

Get to know where your toxic waste facilities are. In the event your new-lasts-for-nine-years-environment-friendly-fluorescent-bulb SHOULD go bad, it doesn't go in the trash like normal light bulbs do. Nope. These things need special attention. Being tortured by the wicked devices during their life-time isn't enough; at the time of their death, they are allotted a special burial and you end up having to baby them even more.

When it comes time to changing the light bulb that has completely messed up your world, don't handle the spiral-handle-of-death like you would the good ole' light bulb. That baby glowing in your house is infected with strains of mercury that in the event it should explode, it is recommended that you should leave the room for at least 15 minutes. If you can't leave, I imagine holding your breath for that long would suffice.

Where you can actually learn more about what I'm talking about.

Seriously. They recommend using wet paper towels, rubber gloves, sticky tape and a sealed plastic bag to clean up the toxic waste explosion of mercury flavored shards of glass. Of course this is after you have left the room for 15 minutes, allowing the chance of mercury contamination to go way down.

My question is, who will be the responsible citizen and transport the failed F-Bulbs sealed in a plastic bag to a toxic waste facility? The general public is unaware of the requirements demanded in order to safely destroy the F-Bulbs. The next thing that will happen is innocent people will be duped into arrests since they are handling toxic waste without certification, without degrees in Fluorescentology and without permits to retire the burned out bulbs in a waste-land.

The above link should help the general public understand the implication of these ~~evil~~ new advances in technology. So we're saving our planet by 'going green' but how healthy can it be to leak mercury in our soil? How responsible is it to save the ozone layer (or whatever it is the environmentalists are trying to save through the F-Bulb) but infect our bodies with exposure to toxic chemicals? What about nature? Animals? Trees? The world we hope to pass on to our children?

~~I'm being totally irrational about this~~ I'm trying to think like an environmentalists would in my attempts to understand the purpose, the sanity, the wisdom in inventing and implementing the fluorescent light bulb. I completely object and think that if some ~~freak~~ person decides to 'go green' with their lifestyle, fine. They have that right. And if they think the fluorescent light bulb enables them to 'go green' -- since one 100 watt F-Bulb only uses 23 watts of energy whereas one 100 watt I-Bulb uses all 100 watts of energy -- then all the more power to them.

That green/blue glow is a good picture of 'go green' since it shines for 9 years (according to the manufacturer) with a eery greenish hint. Have you ever observed somebody standing under a F-Bulb light? They're green. Their skin is green and even their hair will have hints of green. The walls have an inky green to them and the very air they breath seems to be tinted with green. Seriously, 'go green' is a good way to put it.

I, on the other hand, am in favor if the incandescent light bulb and forever it will hold a warm, glowing memory in my heart as I trod heavy-hearted onward into the years of soil contamination in our mercury laced environment. If I want to 'go green,' I'll plant a tree. Or paint a wall green. Or raise a garden. Or water the lawn.

The F-Bulb isn't for me. I'm holding a daily candle vigil for the passing of a good thing: the incandescent light bulb. May it forever rest in peace for the good deed it has served us all these years.

~~Down with Ed Hammer and all the politicians who insist on destroying my incandescent little world.~~ Down with the F-Bulb.

Another Thing the Banks do Wrong

2009-03-13T06:45:00.004-05:00

Have you ever dreaded going to the bank? Even to deposit a check? Or cash a check? I'm not talking about having to make a payment or groan over plummeting financial amounts or check in your savings account to find a dry barrel. I'm talking about going to the bank. Period.

I dread it. Every time. Even to cash or deposit a check.

And the dread has a little something to do with that basket of candy sitting by the drive-through window that my kids covet.

Why can't it be an option to give the kids a sticker? Or a pen? Or even an unused envelope they could lick and then taste the stuff that adheres the envelope shut? Why candy? All it is is cavity-causing-hyper-reactive sweet stuff on the end of a card board stick. Or, in other words, Dum-Dums. (perfect name, by the way.)

I put off going to the bank for days, simply because I don't want to have to go through the drive through, get candy, not give it to the kids (because it's meal time/they already have 4 cavities/they'll get sticky... etc.) and then have them chew me out the whole way home because their candy is not with them.

The latest convincing conversation I had with a certain then-four-year-old (he's 5 now) was, "Mom, I can reach it!" as he strained as far as he could in his strapped in car seat at the very back of the van. He was definitely a good 17 feet away. Okay, not quite that far but it may as well have been. I strained back at him with the candy in my hand and we were still 14 feet apart.

Don't worry; I avoided swerving into the oncoming traffic but had my hand slipped a mere inch, the catastrophe the Dum-Dum would've caused would be cause for a ban on Candy Giving Bank Ladies.

This is serious stuff, people. Somebody needs to stop the impending disaster those "sweet" ladies are liable to cause. I call for a boycott on banks until the baskets of candy are put in a secure metal location with a black rubber lid on top. In other words, in the dumpster.

Maybe this would also help the economy as well since mothers wouldn't be stretched to the end of themselves because their candy craving kids are begging them for the bank candy resulting in mothers making unwise business decisions like whether or not she should let the kids have the candy while she treats herself to $4 iced caramel machiatto on the way home from the bank.

Landon Lines, Janae Jems

2009-03-11T06:45:00.002-05:00

After Five Comes...?
"How long before I'm five?" Landon asked me one day.

"On March second," I answered him.

"And then how long before I'm twenty?"

An Important Question
"Dad, what happens if you don't hold your pee?" Landon asked.

Toby replied honestly, "You'd pee all over yourself."

"Oh," Landon said, satisfied with the answer.

A Trade-In
Just making conversation one day, I asked Landon a question. One of his friends recently got a new baby sister and I wondered what Landon thought about it. So, I asked him for no reason at all other than to pique my curiosity, "Do you want a new sister?"

He looked over at Janae and nodded his head and said, "Yeah, I want to get rid of Janae and get a new sister."

So That's What They Call Them These Days
One morning I heard Janae intently trying to get the front door open.

"Janae, don't go outside yet," I instructed her.

"I just want to ring the dinner bell," she said, referring to the new doorbell.

Heaven on Earth
"Is our church heaven?" Landon asked one day.

"No, it's not," I informed him, wondering why he'd come up with that question.

"Then why was there a dead body there one time?" he said, thinking back to a funeral.

Someone You Love Is A Husband
"I can't wait for my husband to get here," Janae was overheard saying the other day.

"Janae, you don't have a husband, " we explained.

"Yes I do!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Grandpa and Grandma are my husband!"

A few questions heard around our house recently...

How do angels fly? (Landon)

If an angel goes back into heaven, how does the sky get fixed? (Landon)

Did all of Gene's hair holes get too big and his hair fell out? (Landon, referring to a balding friend.)

Time Stops For No Man

2009-03-09T06:45:00.002-05:00

Not to stay in the category of morbidity and death, but I've been thinking about the implications of TIME. No matter what happens, what changes, what comes and what leaves, time goes on. And on. Unmolested by weather, politics, economy, love, sadness, happiness, suffering... time stops for no man.

The assurance of God and the faithfulness of His promise of life eternal is a concept I find refreshing to re-grasp. Even though time's heartless brutality marches past us undaunted by our lack of desire to go on in life after tragedy strikes, God's tender love is that much more present and compassionate.

Just a random thought I had that seemed to appear in this post.

In an attempt to clean out my draft bin again, I ran across a few unfinished posts. So, I've wrapped a few of those up, polished a couple others off and updated some random topics I've thought of over the past several months.

I am also hoping to re-institute the ongoing saga of "Landon Lines, Janae Jems" but may end up re-using a few of their quips in the coming post because I was unsure about the publishing status of a few of them. After this next week, everything should be fresh and new once again.

Also, if any readers make comments or questions in the comment box, I hope to answer those publicly on my blog in the future. Maybe do a monthly/weekly type "Q & A" post. So, let the comments begin.

No guarantees on the consistency of my upcoming blogging. I seem to have a bad case of writer's block right now. Hopefully I'll find a cure-all that will last for more than a couple weeks and will have a few more blogging moments than I've had in recent weeks.

Now, back to regular posting...

The Life Beyond my Blog

2009-03-07T10:00:00.001-06:00

So it's been what, like 6 weeks since I posted last? Yeah, it's been awhile.

If you think my posting habits were the only thing that changed, you're wrong. Everything has changed in my life... even down to the location of my computer.

Unless you don't want to read a list of things that have changed in the past weeks, skip down to the end of this blog where it says, "posted at such and such an hour." That's the part of the show where this post will come to an end.

Those of you that are still reading, here's my ~~bucket~~ list completed...

The kitchen changed. It grew a new pantry and the bliss it brings is almost as unbelievably miraculous as the magic beans in the Jack and the Beanstalk story. (In case you are as uneducated as I was until recently, you can ask my kids that story. They're pretty up on that story since they ask Toby to tell it every night after supper.)

On that same note, my knowledge of Jack and the Beanstalk changed... I now know the story. The rest of the story.

The dining room changed. A doorway was blocked off, boarded up and filled in with a book shelf on both sides and a china cabinet flanking the edges of the old doorway. Yeah, a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll just shut up until I get a picture to post. Another doorway was bored into the wall and for ~~days~~ several hours it rained lathe and plaster dust. You could write your name in the dining room table and come back later and write something else.

A new stair way was etched into the blue print of our house and at last, the "stairway leading no where just for show" (a Fiddler on the Roof moment there, sorry) had a place to end up: the new "stair room" as we seem to call it. It's our old room and is simply an extension of the dining room now but we're still adjusting to the newness of the stairway location. You can still catch Toby (and myself, I'll admit) heading through the kitchen to "go downstairs" since that's where our old steps were. One day Toby did that with an arm load of 12' long pieces of lumber. Talk about going the wrong way on a one way street. (our kitchen is only about 6' wide....)

Our room is changed. Our old room is no longer a bedroom; our new room is no longer what it was before it was our room. I know that sounds confusing but if you think about it, it makes sense. At least to me it does. You see, our new room used to be Janae's room and a play room and a storage room for a bunch of stuff that would fit in the tiny closet and under the low bed. Toys littered everything. Clothes covered the toys littering everything. It was rarely a pleasant site. Now it's practically a honeymoon suite. And the bed is high, which was a big deal to me since I have always always always wanted a high bed.

Our house now has a hallway. A big feat for our tiny abode. And because it now has a hallway, our bedroom and bathroom now present themselves as a master bedroom suite. It's so sweet.

Organization has changed. Basically, organizing is happening around here at last, folks. I have always loved to organize and find just the perfect canisters and boxes and bins and baskets to fit everything just right. Now I have room to actually put all the organizational boxes and bins and baskets and stuff away. I was so excited that I didn't know where to start. So I went to the store one day and while looking at 12" high containers to store dry goods in, I noticed that the container was dishwasher safe: TOP RACK dishwasher safe, that is. And it all made me wonder what kind of scam that was to get you to buy an item with the assurance that you could actually conveniently wash it in a dishwasher. Have you checked your top rack in your dishwasher? There ain't no 12" clearance in mine, I'm afraid. Needless to say, I washed it in the sink... the old fashioned way.

Our marriage changed. We gained an anniversary and have ended up in the "6 year of marriage" bracket. Due to pre-committed to plans, we had to delay the celebration of our anniversary until a later date which we commenced upon at the earliest convenience. We had a lot of fun eating without 3 children spilling their drinks and dropping food and begging for egg nog. (Janae's latest kick.) We talked uninterrupted about the serious things in life like survival in the case of disaster, the importance of water sanitation and what to do in a nuclear attack. We went to Menards. We balanced the Menards trip with a quick stop at TJ Maxx. We like to maintain a sense of balance in our marriage. (that's why he's tall and I'm short(er).)

My brother and brother-in-law left for their last stint of training before heading to Iraq for a year. It's a weird mixture of hope and sadness and admiration that I feel when I think about that. A blend of emotions not often experienced in life. We pray for them daily and trust God to keep them safe. And bring them home!

I became an aunt to a pea sized baby. (compliments of my sister before her husband left for Iraq).

I also became an aunt to bean sized baby. (compliments of my sister-in-law who is a little farther along than my sister.)

And I even became an aunt to a 10-pound-bag-of-potatoes-sized baby. (compliments of another generous sister-in-law.) This baby is close by though and is the snuggliest, sweetest, darlingest little guy you could ever meet. I feel partial to him because he looks a lot like my boys did and in some ways feel like I could legally kidnap him and get away with it since he is very much Nelson.

(All these babies appearing in my life make me feel left out and like I should be joining in the baby boom.)

We have a guest room now. A little bed-and-breakfast-suite-guest room right off our front door. If you should ever need a place to stay while in these parts of the world, we have a bed for you. And a few pillows too. I guess because I have no tiny baby to consume my time with, I can focus on completing projects and organizing and painting and decorating. Something I haven't done for a few years.

Our cat had kittens, raised the kittens and then moved the kittens on. Well, she didn't do all of that by herself of course but you know what I mean. Our cat also was declawed which makes the level of stress in our home go down to about -0 since she can come upstairs without savaging the leather recliner.

What used to be a leaky basement with ugly cement walls now is our family room, a very compatible-to-life laundry room, a semi-organized storage area and a nice clean office space for the husband. Like I said, everything pretty much has changed around here.

Our basement project is complete... at least for the next 5 years.

And finally, even my blog has changed: it has a new post. With all that change going on, it seems that a change in my blog would've just happened -- I mean, if even my tiny kitchen could grow a pantry, surely my blog could just grow a post, right? Well, now it's happened.

Thanks to all who check back often to see if I've updated. I really hope to never leave you hanging for so long. But, in the event I do, here's some of my favorite blogs of the week to visit....

The mom to that 'Pea Sized' baby

An amazing kitchen make-over for $10

Life in a Shoe

Tammy's Recipes (it doesn't just have recipes either.)

A friend of mine who lacks consistency in blogging (but what she does have, old though it may be, is still worth your reading time.)

A friend of mine in the tropics of central America supporting families pursuing homeschooling (lots of fun pictures... except they do eat guinea pigs there.)

For fear I may leave out certain blogs that I don't intend to slight, I'll stop right there with my list of favorite blogs this week. There are a ton more I'd recommend and enjoy but I need to move along and cease from hyperlinking anymore links into this post. Duty calls...

The Downside Proof of being a Stay At Home Mom

2009-01-19T11:23:00.004-06:00

I'm a stay at home mom. And when someone is a stay at home person, they basically stay home all the time. That's like their degree and what they do best at.

Myself included.

I do get out every once in awhile. You know, to put gas in the van. Or buy milk. Or maybe I'll be really wicked and go shopping. But basically, my driver's license only comes in handy when there's no one else on the block to rush my bleeding and dying child to the hospital and I have to be the brave hero that responsibly transports the innocent child to the local ER. Actually, that's never happened so I'm really not sure why I have my driver's license...

Anyway, on a certain day of a certain week recently, my charming husband was busy working on our basement project. Unfortunately, the ~~incompetent~~ delivery ~~men~~ truck from a few days earlier had not supplied us with the ingredients we had ordered that we needed in order to progress in our project. We were lacking in the "installation kit" to the drop ceiling Toby was installing in the basement. And if you don't have the installation kit, basically you can't install the drop ceiling.

So, being the virtuous wife that I aim to be ~~occasionally~~ everyday, I offered to go pick up the TWO installation kits that had not been delivered.

(This entailed a trip to Menards.)

My dear husband took me up on the offer and was relieved when I also offered to take our ~~screaming~~ youngest child with me. That enabled him to accomplish more work without having to care for our ~~screaming~~ littlest child.

As I headed out the door, Toby handed me the 3 foot long receipt I needed for proof that the installation kits were already paid for and also included the delivery report that the ~~incompetent~~ delivery guys had given us when they delivered ~~all~~ most of our stuff.

On a side note, he had written a few more supplies that I could pick up since I was going to Menards anyway. While on my way into town, he added a few more things to the list via my handy cell phone. And while I was shopping at Menards he called a few more times to add a couple other grab-while-you're-there-anyway items.

The list included (but was not limited to) the following:

24" right swing pre-hung door (6' long)
Black door knob
2- door stops
2- light fixtures
4- 8' long medium grade 1x4's

As I went into town patting myself on the back for being such a flexible person that was able to drop everything and just run into town for 2 installation kits so my husband could finish a project, our ~~screaming~~ youngest child sat in his car seat as quiet as a mouse. I was noticing that and commented to myself (quietly, mind you) that the child seemed quite out of the ordinarily quiet. I had to look in the rear-view mirror to make sure I hadn't left him on the side of the driveway. There he was sitting there perfectly quiet. What a nice surprise.

Suddenly, my passenger yelled:

"MOM!"

I responded meekly with, "What?"

He said, "MOM!"

I said, "What?"

He repeated, "MOM!"

I said, "What Alex?"

To which he contemplated for a second and then said, "MOM! MOM!"

I decided to be quiet since responding wasn't helping him get his point across.

He said, "MOOOOOM!!!"

Not being able to figure out what this code word was, I glanced back at him and noticed he was adamantly pointing his finger at something in the front of the van. I could see my purse, a plastic bag, some paper and a box of Kleenex.

"What do you want, Alex?"

Getting more excited he said, "MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM!"

I finally turned on the CD player, thinking maybe that's what he needed.

There was no resounding "mom."

And then Alex started singing and looking out the window, content that his request was finally fulfilled.

I mentally filed away that now the word "mom" means:

"Mom" (literally, as in one's mother)
"More"
"Janae took something away from me"
"Milk"
"I'm done in the tub"
"Get me out of my high chair"
"Put me down now"
and... "Turn on the CD"

I have an idea the list will be added to as his definition for "mom" continues to expand.

So, we get to Menards and I find a parking spot and take my singing child into the store. Unbeknownst to me, the van door gets left open but that is due in part to a) me forgetting to shut the door or b) the electric door deciding to reopen while I walked away. At least I did remember to lock the van while standing IN the store about 15 minutes later. Like my remote key pad can work 100' away, I know, BUT at least I remembered I hadn't locked it. Hey, I can't help it-- I'm a stay at home mom. Don't expect me to make ~~logical~~ non-stay-at-home decisions in a busy parking lot.

I zig zagged around the store going from the service counter to the electric counter to the painting counter to the windows and door counter and finally, up the lumber rack with a baby on my hip in order to get 4 boards.

Now, if you have ever gotten wood at Menards, you know the usual routine:

Locate type of lumber you need (in my case, I needed pine.)
Find correct width (in my case, 1x4)
Scan racks for desired length (in my case, 8')
Look around store for assistance.
Call husband to see if he really needs the wood.
Look around store again for assistance.
Shoulder your purse, put baby on hip and mount stairs to the second level of the lumber racks.
While shouldering purse, and balancing baby on hip, pull out random pieces of lumber.
Look around store to make sure no one is watching.
Pretend you can recognize a bad piece of lumber as you eye down the length of the board.
Put wood back since both ends warp in opposite directions.
Listen to baby whine because you put the wood back (like he really wanted that piece anyway.)
Continue pulling out nicked pieces of wood and putting them back.
Conclude they're all nicked and just look for unwarped pieces.
Decide that they all must be slightly warped.
Narrow down 4 boards that are less warped than the others.
Carry baby and 2 boards down to the cart.
Lock baby in cart and position 2 boards on side of cart.
Relieve shoulder of purse since it would look bad that you kept your purse with you but left the baby in cart.
Climb steps for last 2 boards and position them on opposite side of cart.
Walk to front of store with 5' of wood on both sides flaming behind your cart like a race car.
Ignore stares and the natural impulse to speed.

Thankfully, the Windows-and-Doors-counter-guy had been capable of putting my 24" right swing prehung door on a cart and pushing it to the front of the store. It was waiting for me with ample room for my 4 - 8' long boards.

I had to finish up at the electrical counter and then on to the service desk before I could check out. Funny thing is, the installation kits I originally came in for were out of stock. How convenient!

A kind wall-coverings lady helped me improvise on the needed ingredients and I was soon set to go. I ended up saving about half the money we had spent on the original installation kits since we improvised and ended up with something more cost effective. That at least paid for my gas to make a special trip into town, thanks to the ~~incompetant~~ delivery guys and I felt like the classic Proverbs 31 women, like one of my friends who always seems capable of being since she knows how to shop at CVS.

Anyway, I paid for my purchases and watched a capable young man load my van with a large door and 4 long pieces of lumber. I couldn't see out half of my windows or out the rear-view mirror but at least my tail gate could close. And I could sit in my seat without bumping my head on large wooden objects.

Since it was long past supper time and Alex's shouts for "mom" were taking on a I'm-hungry-and-starving-and-near-death sound, I picked up a snack for him. He commenced to fake choking on it most of the way home. At least he wasn't screaming for food though, for which I was relieved.

My industrious husband made my effort worth it. By the time we went to bed at 2 am that night, the door had been hung, the installation kits had been implemented and the van had been unloaded. Plus, the room he was working in had all the trim installed that the four-year-old had painted earlier. It was a productive day.

And I felt right at home when within 30 minutes of resuming my stay-at-home position, my ~~daring~~ darling daughter had crushed egg shells on the kitchen floor because she liked the way they felt in her hands and she had also broken glass from a candle holder on the livingroom floor because she had scooped up a whole selection of such candles into a snow shovel and then dumped them, resulting into shards of broken glass.

There's nothing like sweeping and vacuuming your house and planning and making supper all within a 30 minute period. Since I can ~~witness~~ handle all three events at such short notice, I must indeed be a stay at home mom.

The Overpriced Sunflower Seed

2009-01-07T14:30:00.003-06:00

After several false attempts at starting this blog, I have decided to just jump right in. I'm not sure why it's so hard for me to talk right now since I usually am capable of talking ~~whether I have anything to talk about or not~~ whether I want to or not. ~~Sometimes I think I just try to act like I'm bashful.~~ Sometimes I can hope I am becoming a more shy person. I guess admitting that proves I really am not shy and probably never will be.

So, here I am.

I am not sure what to blog about. I could blog about our cat and how she screamed and cried and tried to bite us when she had the first 2 of her 4 kittens today. That's pretty much all the information I have on the cat though so that would be the end of this blog if I decided to blog about the cat.

I could blog about the weather but that isn't very interesting... it's only in the 40's. I could blog about my kids but other than eating, drinking and ~~occasionally not getting along~~ being little angels, we don't have much new to report on the home front.

Unless I go back to last year.

And by last year, I mean just last week, December 29, 2008.

Yeah, I think I'll blog about that fateful day.

It was a fair evening and after a week of subzero temps, a fair evening was a special event. The weather was mild, probably in the twenties (balmy, let me tell you) and the day's events were just wrapping up to a nice end with warm biscuits and hot soup for supper. We were on our Christmas Vacation trip and staying with my parents. And when you're on "vacation" everything is supposed to be fun and nothing is supposed to go wrong. Or, we supposedly think anyway.

I had been gone all day and upon arriving "home," I naturally assumed that my baby would be glad to see me. And he was. I could tell. Even though he was irritated and fussy. He kept poking at his face and crying and not acting very comfortable. But he was still happy to see me, I'm just sure of it.

He had that I-just-put-something-in-my-nose look and knowing his habit and addiction of doing so, I instinctively looked up his nose. Sure enough. An unknown foreign object lodge where it wasn't supposed to be.

Okay, just so you know, Alex puts stuff in his nose like most people put stuff in their mailbox. Sometimes every day, sometimes he might skip a day and sometimes a lot of stuff goes in on one day. It just all depends.

We have a system down where we tell him to blow, he blows, everyone cheers, and odd colored objects slime out one of his little nostrils. It's that simple.

If he won't blow, then we bribe him by giving him a whole Kleenex to hold under his nose himself and then we all take our own Kleenex and everyone gets to blow at once. It's great family fun. The problem with involving the Kleenex is that as soon as you look away, Alex will immediately shred his own personal Kleenex and eat it like cotton candy. The problem with that is then the object in the nose can be quickly forgotten while everyone tries to get the remaining Kleenex away from Alex as he viciously chews the pieces in his mouth. I know, he's an odd child.

The following list is a compilation of items based on memory of what has been inserted in his nose or insertion was at least attempted:

Vitamins
French Fries
Cereal
A Tiny Bell (those are easy to detect: you just shake the child.)
Crackers
Sunflower Seed Shells
Crumbs
Noodles
Anything Found On Highchair Tray
Anything Small Enough To Fit In Nostril
etc.
Misc.

So, upon realizing we had another Object in Nose Epidemic on our hands, we did the usual system. Alex blew hard, nothing escaped, Alex got a Kleenex, nothing escaped, everyone got a Kleenex, Alex blew hard, nothing escaped, etc. Finally, Toby got a bright flash light and tweezers and went on an intensive recovery mission.

The only thing we concluded was that it was an item of the Sunflower Seed family and it was firmly lodged in his nose.

We waited a bit to see if it would work down. It didn't. So we went to the Emergency Room. Yeah, the ER.

It was funny how we got lost on our way there because Alex's mom thought she knew a short cut. That's embarrassing because she grew up in that area.

Even funnier was that Alex sang the whole way. And he had never really sang before and definitely not in the car. Alex usually cries in the car so to sing was really out of character for him. We made sure he was really our kid before we were admitted to the ER. To have to pay an ER bill for a kid that's not our own would not be something we'd necessarily feel compelled to do. But of course, he was indeed our son.

Alex got quite the treatment. He was weighed. Had his pulse checked. Flirted with the nurses. Listened to mommy answer a million-and-one questions. And then Alex waited. And so did his parents.

What is it with ER's ~~requiring~~ making people wait so long? It's as if people get there, could be half dying and then they just sit in a tiny room and wait. And wait. And wait. It's almost as if the waiting part is the processional to the doctor's exam and treatment. His treatment just might not work if you don't spend a good period of time waiting before hand. Maybe they want to make sure you are good and sick/dying before they attempt a treatment.

And their timing is always off. The nurse said to wait a minute. We waited for several minutes... like as in at least a half hour.

Once the doctor told us just to wait 45 seconds. It was at least 5 minutes before our wait was up.

It's like these people don't know how to tell time. Seriously. If they said, "Wait about 45 minutes to an hour and then the doctor will be in" it would be easier to cope with the anticipation of every noise potentially being the doctor coming in. But they don't. They give you false hope that you will be out of there in no time.

But I won't complain. Even if they can't tell time, at least they know medicine.

Anyway, the doctor came in, gave us a few options of what he'd try to use to pull out the foreign object but admitted that our best bet would probably be with a Ear Nose and Throat doctor. Of course at 9:00pm that wasn't really an option.

The ER doctor tried a couple of his instruments in hopes of getting the 'object in nose' out. Alex screamed and screamed. Nothing was productive. Except for Alex's lungs producing lots of air that helped sustain a nice, steady wail. He disliked the restrain -- the instruments in his nose were painless since the doctor really couldn't get too deep with them anyway. Alex screams like that in a car seat and I know a car seat is entirely painless but very restraining.

After making a few phone calls, the doctor gave us our last option: "Drive 20 minutes to the next hospital where the regional ENT doctor will meet you." I wanted to laugh. The hospital he was talking about was at LEAST 30-45 minutes away. But, that didn't matter... even though he did say 20 minutes. We agreed to go.

So, before we left the first hospital, we gave our address to the front desk so the nice people in that ER who never helped us could send us a nice, generous hospital bill. And then we drove to another hospital and gave them our ~~contract~~ contact information so they too could get a donation from us.

A weight, pulse, background check, etc. was all required here as well but we told them we had already verified all that at the last hospital. We were able to skip out on some of the requirements, thankfully. I think every time they pick up a pen or use an electronic item, you're charged another $50. Seriously, the kid has an object IN his nose -- does it really matter if the kid is up to date on his shots?

The wait began in another ER room but this one didn't last long. A kind, country-style doctor came in with frayed hemmed jeans, a wrinkled doctor's gown and a soft smile. He apologized for his attire as he explained he had just came from a movie theatre and was dressed for that occasion, not for medical purposes. He said all that while he waited for his microscopic glasses to unfog that he had just carried in from his car in a rustic, wooden box. He didn't make us feel like we had invaded on his evening and when we thanked him, he seemed too humble to even admit that he was doing anything worth thanking him for.

Now, this doctor was smart. He took one look at Alex and immediately called for a male CNA. He had Toby hold Alex, the male nurse restrain him and I (the soft hearted mother) stood on the perimeter and just watched.

7 seconds later a WHOLE sunflower seed popped out of Alex's right nostril. Seriously. The doctor just pulled it out with his long pick. Alex immediately stopped crying once he was no longer restrained and then he just looked at all the men in the room as if he was embarrassed that he had shed tears in such a masculine environment.

The doctor wrapped up his things and the CNA dropped the seed in the trash. We said thanks and goodbye and then a nurse came in and discharged us. Okay, that took a little bit since we hadn't filled our wait quota yet. But it was only a half hour 'minute'.

Our discharge papers had follow-up care which simply stated that we should "teach child not to put objects in nose." We entirely agree with the logic but have to conclude that it's slightly idealistic.

I can assure you we are doing our best to practice the hospital recommended follow-up care and when we get a double ER bill in the mail in a couple days, we'll be tempted to ~~tie Alex's hands together so he can't put anything in his nose~~ sue the sunflower seed company in hopes for enough money to cover the bill. Actually, we'll probably ~~sell one of the kids~~ just pay it and hope we never have to again.

The worst part about it is that we paid for that sunflower seed three times and ended up just throwing it away. And in ~~our~~ any economy, that's a pretty inefficient budgeting system.

When Reality Hits

2009-01-05T14:00:00.003-06:00

I have never entered a new year with so much foreboding. So much holding on to the old year. So much trepidation. Even fear. And lots of uncertainty.

Yeah, the economy is bad, the war is sad and the change in presidency could inflict a lot of change in our world, etc. But the biggest reason for the unwillingness to go into the new year is because my brother and brother-in-law are leaving for a whole year and going to Iraq. They won't even be home for next Christmas.

That is sad. Because Christmas time always promises the gathering of families. Or so we like to think.

Have you ever stopped to think about what a whole year can bring? I was the other day. It dawned quite obviously on me that 12 months have a lot of potential to bring a vast experience of excitement, grief, change, burdens, hopes and dreams fulfilled. It's such a huge variety of what life holds that to look ahead to a year that already gives a glimmer of sadness, makes it even more foreboding to head into it.

On the lighter side, a child can go from barely wiggling to walking in a year's time. Another child can go from not knowing their alphabet to learning how to read in a year's time. And conceivably speaking (pun not intended), a child can go from conception to pregnancy to birth to 3 months old in a year's time. Even a woman can go from one pregnancy to another in a year's time. (not that it's ever happened to me before...)

A job can be lost, a house can be sold, a trip around the world can be taken, a move can be made, etc, all within a year's time.

And what about hard change. Like death. Or misunderstandings. Or sickness. It can all happen in a years time.

Reality can be hard to grasp. Even harder to accept. But, sometimes whether you're ready or not, reality hits and life goes on. I admire the courage of my brothers and their ability to embrace the reality of a year of war. But, a year of worry for me doesn't sound too thrilling.

The perspective of my reality versus their reality is enough to sober me into a year of prayer. Why worry when you can pray, right? And that's what I intend to do for the next 13 months.

Pray with me please.

Procrastinators Unite

2009-01-04T23:03:00.004-06:00

I won't even try to capture a ~~nostalgic~~ committed-to-change New Years Resolution spirit right now. I know it's the first post on my blog this year and the unwritten rule is that all first posts in the New Year must emphasis the importance of what will change in the new year, etc. I am resisting the trend.

Honestly folks, since when are NYR's (figure that out) anything to talk about? All we do is TALK about them. What's the point of talking about something you only talk about? Why not discuss the things you actually DO.

It dawned on me today that people who wait until January 1 of whatever respective year they're in to "start over" or make a fresh start on something, are really procrastinators. That's the hard core truth, I know. (And it takes one to know one.)

Not to totally desert you in your defeated state of mind as you attempt to grasp the truth of what I just said, I have hope: you CAN start over today, tomorrow, the next day or even next week. It doesn't HAVE to be the beginning of a new year. I know, isn't that amazing news?

So, go get on that diet you've been talking of trying for the last several months. Start that hobby you've been threatening your loved ones with. Make a change in your coffee drinking habits. Whatever it is you want to start over or begin with or make an end to, do it now. Don't wait until next year.

OH, and if you get it down pat but fail tomorrow, don't worry: each morning is a fresh start. A new beginning. You don't have to wait until January 1 2010 to attempt it again.

If you insist on making me admit that I have a NYR, then fine. Here it is: I'm taking on God's perspective in 2009. He starts over every morning. He gives a new beginning. A new abundance of mercy.

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness..."

Lamentations 3:22-23

A fresh beginning on January 1 is always fun. But it doesn't usually last long into the ~~week month~~ year. I'm taking all my new endeavors one day at a time. That's what God does with me and I think He has the right idea.

Since God relentlessly does that for me, than I will always have hope to start that new menu. That efficient laundry schedule. That coupon clipping craze. That better-use-of-her-time planner. That love-her-~~crazy~~-adorable-kids more. That be a better wife idea.

My goal this year is that in everything I set out to do (that I end up failing in), the next day will bring all the hope I need to start over. I won't have to wait until the next January 1st.

And that's my New Years Resolution.

The Evil Weatherman And How He Corrupts

2008-12-26T10:46:00.005-06:00

We had a nice Christmas. A real, nice, Christmas. All the family was home too. Though not for long.

We are petitioning the general public to actively pursue the opportunity to sue the Weatherman. Yes, the ~~evil, lying, deceiving~~ Weatherman. HE wrecked what could've been a perfect Christmas. He corrupted our celebration. Our family time. He left a dark shadow on what was supposed to be a perfect evening.

See, we had certain family members that had to travel the day after Christmas. The Weatherman (like the devil) wanted to interfere in our goodness in life and in the blessing of family and in the close togetherness that Christmas is intended to produce. He was like Santa Clause -- you know how Santa distracts from the real meaning of Christmas? Well, the Weatherman did that as well.

He slammed the weather site that certain family members visited with an ~~evil~~ scary looking weather alert. Snow, ice, rain, cold, etc. Pretty much everything but a tornado. Although, had it been summertime he probably would've used a tornado warning instead.

So, he alerts the area with a Winter Storm Advisory all the way from our house to the front door of the home the certain family members needed to get to, 3 1/2 hours away. As if that wasn't a sign right there. I mean, how often does weather effect the ENTIRE width of one state? Not often. Unless the Weatherman is up to his ~~evil~~ deeds in twisting his tactics into a close family's Christmas.

Instead of saying goodbye the day after Christmas, we said goodbye to the certain family members the day OF Christmas. How sad. Christmas is not the time to say goodbyes. Especially not to one family member we won't see until after his tour to Iraq for a whole year. We bid them a Merry Christmas and watched a few flakes of snow fall from the sky.

The Weatherman was happy. He had deceived us thoroughly. But, the snow and ice and rain and cold only lasted long enough until right after they left. ~~evil Weatherman.~~

Anyway, not to complain after having such a sweet Christmas but seriously, if it's not the devil, it's the Weatherman. The ~~evil, conspiring, jealous~~ Weatherman.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas (unless you're the ~~evil~~ Weatherman) and are looking forward to a New Year ahead. Oh and in case you're wondering, we're not just dreaming about a white Christmas; we are walking in a winter wonderland around here.

On Jogging Babies, A Pregnant Cat and Christmastime

2008-12-23T14:13:00.009-06:00

I really should not be blogging. My kids are sleeping, the house is quiet, the phone is not ringing and the sun is shining. This is a bad time for blogging: I really should be doing laundry. Or cleaning. Or packing. Or something productive.

But, since the Christmas season is heavily upon us (though our home has been decluttered of Christmas decor as of last Saturday), I assumed I should do my best to create a festive ado to the old year and prepare with diligence for the new year. At least on my blog.

Christmas season is over at our house because 1) we celebrated it twice already here and 2) we will be gone the entire Christmas week while celebrating with family else where. So, not to give myself more to get done in the New Year, I put all our stuff away already. It seems strange to plan for Christmas but yet already have the stockings taken down, the candles put away and the trees undecorated.

We are in the midst of the FUN part of our basement remodel. Janae's room has been heavily decorated with flowers, butterflies and clouds and has caused a spirit of covetousness in her older brother's heart. He really wants pink and purple and yellow flowers and butterflies in his room. If he only knew what was in store for his new room, he'd not waste time on frivolous matters of dreaming of butterflies. (hint: it involves a train.)

Alex has evolved into a creature of ~~insanity and impulsive, irreparable cranial discoveries~~ unbelievable climbing performance. If it's above the floor, out of his reach and right where he wants to go, he'll get there. No matter how high. He has sustained a goodly amount of cuts, bumps and bruises and even some possible spine misalignment. But, all that to say that his favorite place to go for a jog is around and around the top of the dining room table. While I make supper.

I am secretly coveting cultures where the family sits on the floor while they eat -- a table is unheard of. Oh, and the people that eat with their fingers... my kids would feel right at home. Just think of the ease life would be. That whole dining-room-table-less-culture means I could seriously cook supper without rescuing my baby off the top of the table 5 times while I attempt to put whipped topping on the dessert. (not that it's ever happened or anything...)

Janae is doing well. She is convinced the real name for Christmas is "April 5th" since that is her birthday. This gift giving and celebration with family and friends is all too confusing and synonymous with her birthday. We have told the Christmas story several times to the kids and never took time to mention that Jesus was probably born in April or March, according to history. Nonetheless, Janae calls it April 5th and maybe someday she'll realize that Christmas and Birthdays are two very different holidays, even though her and Jesus just might share the same birthday. The bundle of energy, giggles and tears that Janae is continues to prove over and over that she is definitely all girl.

Landon. He's a boy. He shovels snow. And shovels snow. And shovels snow. Then, he comes inside with his new shovel and washes it in the sink to get all the dirty snow and mud off. Every time too. Weird kid. I wish he was as particular about his room. The Christmas story has him perplexed: "Why did that lady have her baby in a barn?" Makes me realize that the "Christmas story" really was more than just a story; it was reality for that lonely baby and his rejected mother. Do we really understand the Christmas story the way a child can???

Toby is well. All the teeth left in his head from the last dentist ~~assignment~~ appointment are also well. When it rains it pours so we are happily supporting the financial fund for our dentist. A pocket of infection left Toby looking like half a chipmunk on his face but he endured it happily and painted the kids' new rooms while healing from the ordeal his teeth gave him for 3 days. Since then, he's been enjoying life at home since our subzero weather has shut most construction workers up for awhile. Bookwork and remodeling keep him busy and when he gets ornery, he'll just come upstairs and shoot rubber bands at his wife or make fun of the way she complains about her sore knee.

Rasputia (our cat) is about to give birth at pretty much any given moment. We are hoping she waits until after Christmas so we can be home to enjoy the new kittens and watch with amazement at the wonderment of our house becoming infested with cats.

We built a redneck-looking-hay-igloo outside for the dog. Any of you wondering about how she's fairing in this subzero weather, don't worry. The only thing she lacks is a kerosene heater and Christmas lights around her "house." But we thought that would be more dangerous than helpful so she just gets food and water everyday.

Oh and the guinea pig is still out on her foreign exchange student trip. She is residing for part of the school year at a local grade 6-12 school house. We are enjoying not having guinea pig poop to sweep up but think when she comes home, she'll like the basement better than when she left. The added cats to our home will also help in making her feel comfortable here as well.

As for me, I'm really supposed to be doing laundry, packing and getting ready for the trip. I'm trying to size down the number of items we ~~bring~~ take (properly expressed grammer) but since Wisconsin has so much more cold and so much more snow and so much more ice than we do, it's hard to eliminate layers when you really should be adding more. Not to mention all the gifts and items that we usually haul up there.

While I get back to my day here and make a better mess of the pile of laundry and junk waiting to be packed, I hope you all have a very, Merry Christmas!

When Life Dictates Your Blog

2008-12-12T21:04:00.005-06:00

So I haven't posted in a week and a half. I know. You try raising 3 kids during the Christmas season and keeping up on laundry while you remodel your basement at the same time and then let me know how much time you have for blogging.

Seriously though, in all factual honesty, the basement has little to do with my life right now. Except for the pile of paint samples ~~sitting in the van~~ I mean ~~hanging in a Menards bag~~ actually ~~they're now stacked on the piano bench~~ oh, I guess they're on the table. (My kids keep moving them around, in case you couldn't tell.)

The phase of work we're on right now with our basement has been hired out to a professional. Judging by the "technique" my husband, Mr. Roofer, naturally has for mudding and taping, our drywall would've ended up looking like something between stucco and a earth quake survival test. So, we changed our budget to accommodate a more professional wall finish and skipped the kitchen remodel altogether. For now.

And that's fine with me actually because the kitchen was supposed to be remodeled a year ago so if I can wait all this time and still be content, who cares if it's another 10 years before the kitchen gets a little extra counter space? If we can have a basement finished in the meantime, I'll take that offer gladly, Mr. Roofer. Anything is better than nothing.

Oh, and not to expound on all the exciting details of my life, Mr. Drywall-guy guarantees that he'll have the mudding and taping and sanding done in four days. That's FOUR literal, 24 hour days. I seriously can NOT believe that.

Mr. Drywall assured me he was not that impressive. He said that if he tried roofing his house, it would take a whole year. I know a Mr. Roofer who could probably get it done in a day. So yeah. Mr. Drywall really isn't as good as I thought in the first place... or so I say in order to not become delusional into thinking that he must work magic in order to complete a drywall job in 4 days.

Honestly folks, do you know how long Mr. Roofer would've ended up taking drywalling our basement because his method is so much more lengthy? Yeah. We won't even go there right now.

Not to change topics or anything but since a mighty eighteen-month-old is playing catch with me and seeming to soundly hit my computer with everything he tosses at me, I'm going to have to rapidly move on to other topics in order to actually finish this post tonight before my computer screen becomes punctured by flying objects being hurled in the air by a fat baby and then my computer will have to go back to Best Buy where the Geek Squad will take 3 months in order to finally write on our repair list that the screen on this computer was punctured but is now fixed.

They say honesty is the best policy so I'm shooting for the best policy right now and going to be blunt and straight to the point: I have not felt like blogging. at. all. How's that for an excuse?

Let's just say that nothing in my life or brain have been conducive for a mentally sound blog post. I am not a mental person ~~at least I don't want you to think I am~~ and I know that's hard to believe but I do know when and how to keep my mouth shut. Seriously, I do. Just look at the history of posts on this blog in the last week.

And if I had blogged, it would've been chaotic too. Kinda like the football that keeps hitting my arm as I type right now. (It's that eighteen-month-old harassing me again.)

So, as I focus on the Christmas season and the reality that my offspring have woken up to the wonders this season brings, I am reminded at the brevity of life. (And a small plastic plate is hurled up at the computer while I try to re-live the Christmas spirit. I love that eighteen-month old.)

To think that for only a few more short years, my kids will understand Christmas the way they do now. The wonder of a baby born in a barn. The irony that angels came to earth. The mystery of the wise men riding "wumps" to see the baby Jesus. (Thank you Dr. Suess for permanently altering my child's ability to recognize a camel.)

As I hurl the football into the other room in order to give me a few lines of peace and quiet while that eighteen-month-old runs for the ball, I am gathering my thoughts quickly in order to remember where my train of thought was originally headed.

Bummer. The football wasn't as interesting as the foam dry eraser he has now decided to entertain my life with. The bad thing about that is no matter how hard I throw this little piece of foam, it doesn't go nearly as far as that football did. So basically, he picks it up and throws it back and pants and squeals in anticipation for me to throw it back to him.

Before I put my arm out of socket from ~~wildly swinging~~ futilely throwing a small foam object 27" from my foot, I should just say that with all due respect, I am not dead, dying, sick or gone. I am just not in a blogging mood. Actually, I was sick and even went to the doctor but that probably has something to do with the fact that when I merely enter the bathroom, my children's small world falls apart. Literally, I shut the door and it seems like the Gestapo is beating down the door demanding to enter the premises in order to search for illegal documents in the bathroom. And all I'm doing is trying to... oh, never mind.

So, I avoid that tiny cubicle like the plague since it tends to cause ~~my children to re-in act Gestapo raids~~ catastrophe where civilization inhabits. Did you know that not going to the bathroom when you need to, you know, go will actually make your UTI worse? Yeah, it's a proven fact. But, some people seem to forget that.

Maybe I am mental?

Random Trip Update

2008-12-01T16:20:00.001-06:00

It's that day-after-trip-day. Everything is in limbo.

The kids are napping off schedule which is never fun. The baby got up just before the older kids laid down. The baby was fussy so went back to bed when the older kids laid down. The oldest kid is now singing in his bed. The middle kid is sleeping (I think) and the youngest kid is playing (I think) or else sleeping. Oops, now he's crying.

Grandma is in town for 10 days.

Suitcases sit in a stack in the dining room but hey, at least they're empty.

Supper needs to be made.

Everyone is tired.

Daddy is working in the frigid cold.

But, we had a wonderful time in Colorado and enjoyed every minute. Being with friends, mountains and food all at the same time was an experience beyond what Nebraska has -- I mean, those mountains really make the experience monumental. Just kidding.

Seriously, I was reminded again that having a good time is not contingent on surroundings or familiarity; it's on God's love being shared mutually by friends. And we definitely had that. It was a very encouraging trip and the fun and blessings we had couldn't have been any greater.

It was fun to be at the place where "it" all began. And by "it" I mean our relationship. A lot of things have changed in 6 years and "it" definitely has changed since then. Adding 3 kids and lots of love is a sure way to change "it" in 6 years time. Instead of saying, "It sure was nice to meet you," as Toby walked away from the table that ~~fateful~~ sweet day, he sits at the table that I serve everyday now. We both think that's nice.

The front step of the Church also has sweet memories. That was the place I made the decision to follow Christ. The place I made the first stake in my walk with God. I was glad to see that with all that's changed in 8 years, that step hasn't changed at all. It was a stark reminder to me that just like my heart has stayed in close communion with God, that step still sits rooted, and grounded into the entrance of the Church. For some reason I found the similarity profound.

Our traveling was uneventful, which we were thankful for. We heard of several friends and family members traveling yesterday that were stranded in motels because of weather. We were fortunate to travel safely and quickly... except for all the tumbleweeds that hit our van. Thankfully, they don't do much damage except make your vehicle look like you drove through a dried flower factory.

We were glad to come home and know our dear Grandma was coming into town on a brief visit. The kids were sad to leave Colorado but when we told them Grandma would be in Nebraska, they readily got in the van. I'm sure we'll have several fun days ahead until she heads back to her home in a couple weeks.

Now to get back into the swing of things, enjoy some family time, gear up for our Wisconsin Christmas Trip in a few weeks and settle into December weather.

The Tale of the Grapes and Trucks

2008-11-26T07:00:00.001-06:00

My kids are starting a raisin factory. And it's all my fault. Here is what you can do to insure that you never have this happen at your home:

Do not serve grapes at the same time that you give your kids small semi trucks and trailers.

You don't think that would happen at your house? Don't fool yourself: I thought the same thing until it happened to me. You know, it's one of those things that you think always happens to the other guy. And then it happens to you and you understand at last what it feels like to be the "other guy."

One delightful day, I found two of the cutest little matchbox semi trucks at a thrift store. I decided to buy them and use them as a prize for the kids.

After helping and obeying cheerfully while preparing for supper and picking up the house, I set the little trucks next to the kids' plates. Within inches of their plates sat a bowl of juicy, purple grapes.

Landon and Janae both were tickled pink: the trucks were a big hit. So were the grapes -- my kids LOVE grapes and we seem to rarely have them.

Unfortunately, over the next few days, the semi trailers were opened and the contents were revealed. Each trailer could fit about 3-4 grapes comfortably but I can imagine that if the grape paid well, they could fit close to 9 or 10 fugitive refugee grapes.

These foreign little grapes were then trucked all over the house and examined and ate at random times in random places. The rest of the grapes... well, I have yet to find those.

The funny thing is: my kids have always disliked raisins. Why they embarked on their own entrepreneur raisin factory, is beyond me.

The moral of the story: do a content check on all small vehicles, all closed compartments and tally all food coming into your home. And never say, "that couldn't happen to me."