The Pie Crust Wasn't the Only Thing That Was Flaky

For as long as I have been dating and/or married to my husband, we have split Thanksgiving between our two families. We celebrate with his family in the early afternoon, eating way too much food for lunch, then heading to my family's, where we again try and eat way too much food for dinner. We then finish off the evening by staying up way too late, drinking too much wine, and playing too many games with my parents, my brother and his girlfriend. The next day I feel like the turkey....dead and stuffed. Needless to say, whenever my girlfriend, Jonna, would ask me if I wanted to go Black Friday shopping with her the day after Thanksgiving, I always looked at her like she had grown another head. No way. I would be lucky to be out of bed before my kids, let alone before the SUN! Never-the-less, she would always ask, and I would always laugh at her.

This year, we got smart. My mom and I put our heads together and realized it would be a much more relaxing day for Mark and I (and my brother and his girlfriend....they were having to split the day on Thursday, too), if we celebrated with them on Friday. Brilliant. This would mean that we would be home on Thursday sometime around naptime, and would not have to be anywhere else until sometime the next afternoon. We also wouldn't be trying to cram TWO Thanksgiving dinners into our tummies in one day (although somehow we had always managed to do it). It also meant that when Jonna asked me again this year if I wanted to go Black Friday shopping with her, I actually considered it. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be fun. An adventure. Something you have to do at least once in your life, right?! So I said I would.

Thursday night, after Jonna and I had put our game plan together and decided where we would be going first (Kohl's) and what time she would be picking me up (4:50...A! M!) , I headed off to bed. My allergies had been bothering me, but I didn't want to take a Benadryl for fear of the hangover I'd have in the morning. I set my alarm for 4:00, figuring I'd hit snooze once or twice, then stumble into the shower, get dried, dressed and out the door. But you know what they say about the best of intentions.

I did not sleep a wink that night. I tossed and turned and had allergy attack upon allergy attack. My eyes were red and puffy, my nose was sniffly and sometime around 3:00, I finally conceded that I could not go on my shopping adventure. The only problem was, there was no way for me to tell Jonna this without waking her entire family. So I decided the best idea was for me to stay awake until she got there, run out and tell her I wasn't going, then come back inside to my Benadryl and my bed. (Before you think I'm too terrible, let me tell you that Kohl's is LITERALLY right across the street from my apartment. She did not go out of her way AT ALL by coming to pick me up.) But I chickened out. I sent my husband.

So my shopping adventure crashed and burned. Fortunately, our Thanksgiving didn't. We had delicious food, good company and fun times. My mom and I decided that a Friday Thanksgiving was the best idea and we would be crazy to do it any other way in the future (hopefully everyone else in the family agrees!). Maybe next year I will try again to go shopping on Black Friday and be successful. Maybe I won't. Either way I will be thankful for understanding friends, flexible family and another year to celebrate. I hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful as mine!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Many of you may already know this, but for those of you who don't, I thought I would share this. When we were children, we learned about the Pilgrims and the Indians, and the beautiful meal they shared together. Children now are being told that Thanksgiving is a "time of mourning". Neither are true. While Thanksgiving had been celebrated intermittently throughout American history, it was not until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it to be a national holiday in 1863 that it became American tradition. If you read his proclamation, you will see no mention of Pilgrims, Native Americans or even turkeys. You will see that he was very intent on this holiday being about God. His entire focus was on God's gracious provision for our country during a time of great strife (the Civil War), and that they needed to stop, as a country, and thank our merciful God for all He had given them.

Today while you are eating your turkey, playing games, watching football and whatever other traditions your family participates in, remember to stop and thank GOD for all that He has blessed you with. Then from now on, let every day be Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for all of you who read my little blog. It brings me such joy! Thank you and God bless your holiday!

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Thankfulness, Day 3

I am thankful for simple pleasures. God is such a big, mighty, majestic god that is is sometimes unfathomable to me how much he cares about the details. I feel so sorry for those who don't know this. There are so many people out there, believing in God, but thinking He watches us "From a Distance" (Thank you, Bette Midler). He does NOT watch us from a distance. He sees the big picture (He created it), and He sees all of mankind (He reigns over us), but he also knows how many hairs I have on my head, and how soon they will be turning gray (Luke 12:6-8). I don't know about you, but that is about as detailed as it gets. Believe me when I tell you He knows how many hairs are on your head too, and if He knows THAT about you....imagine how much else He knows. And loves you anyway!

So I am thankful for the small things God allows to fill my life with pleasure. He doesn't have to, but because He is a good, good God, He does.

I am thankful for the first hug from my boys every morning. It's delicious.

I am thankful for my mom's carrot cake. It's delicious, too!

I am thankful for scented candles. Particularly Yankee Candle's new Frosted Pumpkin....it's perfect.

I am thankful for laughter that is so strong it makes your face ugly and your sides ache.

I am thankful for Rich Mullins, Bebo Norman, Third Day, U2 and Billy Joel (and about a million others).

I am thankful for hymns that drip with reverence for God and that can't be sung without crying.

I am thankful for Doris Day movies on a rainy afternoon.

I am thankful for bubble baths.

I am thankful for coffee!

I am thankful for email, and how easy and cheap it is to keep in contact with friends.

I am thankful for The Office (but I am very sad that the writer's strike has it off the air for now).

I am thankful for naptime.

I am thankful for inside jokes.

I am thankful for playing games with my family and friends. Even though some of us are sore losers.

I am thankful for Indoor Park.

I am thankful for cooking and baking and how fun it is to be creative in the kitchen.

I am thankful for shocking red and orange and yellow trees against a bright blue sky.

I am thankful for Christmas lights.

I am thankful for Bath and Body Works Kitchen Lemon Anti-bacterial soap. I'm never out.

This list could go on and on, but my two boys are done with their breakfasts now, so I need to go take care of them. Which, while not always simple, is always a pleasure.

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My Thankful Heart, Day 2

I have struggled with what to be thankful for next. I told you all that I wanted it to be something I had to think about, so I thought about what was having the biggest impact on my life at this season and there was one clear answer. The struggle I have had is with how exactly to word this post so as not to confuse anyone about where my worship is directed. The only reason I am even attempting this is because if only ONE person reading my blog is introduced to this woman's ministry because of it, it would have been worth the effort. So I am going to try my best.

I am thankful for Beth Moore.

September of 2006 was a special month for me. Not only was my son, Micah, born, but I was also introduced to Beth Moore's Bible studies at that time. (I know that sounds like a ridiculous comparison. The birth of my son with a Bible study series?! Believe me when I tell you I'm only slightly exaggerating. It is not really the Bible study series itself so much as it is the way it has deepened and strengthened my relationship with the Lord, and make no mistake...my relationship with the Lord is every bit as important to me as my children!) Little did I know that when our womens' minister decided to choose Beth's Daniel study for our Thursday morning group that my life would be so forever changed. Then came Living Beyond Yourself, Beth's leading through the Fruit of the Spirit. This Fall we started (and have almost completed) Breaking Free.

The reason I am so thankful for Beth's ministry is because God uses her to speak to me in such mighty ways. She has taught me how to love Jesus and love God's Word in ways I didn't know were possible. She taught me the importance of going to the original Hebrew and Greek and that having a good grasp of Biblical history is essential to getting all there is out of Scripture. She explained the Holy Spirit and his role in my life in ways that brought Him into living color. She is funny, she is genuine, she is smart and she loves the Lord so much it oozes from her.

As I said, I would hate for there to be any confusion about whom I worship. I do NOT worship Beth, I admire her. I worship Jesus Christ, but I worship Him more fully and more deeply because of the teaching I have received from Beth. She has submitted to God's calling and authority in her life and is a very effective ambassador. God is no dummy. He knew what Beth would become with the power of His Spirit, and it was no accident that He chose her. I am SO THANKFUL that she listened to His call.

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A Thankful Heart is a Happy Heart

Madame Blueberry taught me this (now that I have children, there are lots of things in life that just come down to Veggie Tales), and I believe her. Most of the time. The problem is that I get so distracted by the tedium of everyday life (diapers, chicken nuggets and binkies, oh, my!), that I forget to be thankful. I end up posting things like this. So this week, as we ramp up to Thanksgiving, it is my intention to refocus on all that I have to be thankful for. I figure what better way to do that then to enlist you all as my accountability partners. Everyday this week I will post something that I am thankful for. And not just the obvious. Something I actually have to take time to think about. So here I go.

I'm going to get the the expected out of the way. I am thankful for relationships. God has blessed me with an incomparable family. We can laugh, cry, debate and disagree all within a span of about 5 minutes, but there is never any doubt about the love we have for each other. I have the kind of friendships that are to be envied. I know without a doubt that I am prayed for regularly and I can openly and honestly share whatever is on my heart without judgement, and they can do the same with me. We laugh until we cry (just last night, in fact) and tease the heck out of each other, yet when the rubber meets the road, we would all give each other the shirts of our backs. I have a husband who treats me like a princess (which may or may not be a good thing), stopping at nothing to make sure my needs are met. He is completely selfless and it is my prayer every day that I would be able to show him even a fraction of the love that he shows me. I have two healthy, bright, well-behaved (mostly) children. They have taught me love and patience and joy that is beyond words.

Then there is that relationship that defines my life. The relationship I have with Jesus Christ. He loves me lavishly though I fail him everyday. He is always waiting to spend time with me, even when I go days without taking any time with Him. He gives my life purpose and meaning even though I often whine about it. He provides me every resource I have, even though I often squander them. I am in awe of all that He is and will never understand why He loves me so, I just know that I am SO THANKFUL that he does!

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Anybody know where I can send in my application for Mother of the Year?

Apparently my sons have decided that a little redecorating is necessary. Either that or they think we have way too much money and not enough to spend it on. How else do you explain BOTH of these things happening in one weeks time?

Yes, that is a glass lamp that is broken to bits. It is our main source of light in our living room, so it will need to be replaced tonight. And yes, that is big, fat Sharpie on our wall. A wall that will need to be primed and repainted, since nothing we have tried has taken one bit of pen off of our wall and yet has removed all sorts of paint. (For the record, we have tried: Magic Eraser, nail polish remover, alcohol, WD-40, Windex, degreaser and Goo Gone, any other suggestions will be tried, but at this point, I have little hope).

The thing that gets me is how fast these things happen. Any judgement I ever had for mothers who "let" stuff like this happen has dwindled daily. Both of these things happened in a matter of seconds, and one of them while I was in the room (I didn't know Micah was about to push the lamp over), the other while I was doing something completely unnecessary, like going to the bathroom!

So even though I feel like pulling my hair out right now and crying about the money in the checkbook I thought was going to stay there, I'm glad to know that at least I am learning humility and compassion. I don't know if it comes from insecurity or self-righteousness or both, but mothers can have a way of cutting each other down instead of lifting each other up. We can get so sure of our own skills that we look down our noses in disgust at the ones who are doing it "wrong". Or maybe we aren't sure of our skills. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe we are all so secretly scared that we are doing it all wrong that the only way we can make ourselves feel better is to point our fingers at someone else who we perceive is doing it "worse". Who knows? All I know is that I have had a real dose of feeling like a failure this week and my heart goes out to all those mothers who may be feeling the same. I am certain that we are all doing our best and God's grace is enough to fill in the gaps (now hopefully He will do something about those gaps in our checkbook!).

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Inside Jokes

As parents, we find ourselves walking a fine line between fostering independence and making sure our children still respect our ultimate authority. This is true even for my two-year-old. That is why I try to avoid questions like "What do you want to wear today?". All that would lead to is him wanting to wear his diaper, sandals and his Little Einsteins shirt with nothing else. To church. Something tells me that might cause a stir. So instead I ask questions like "Would you like to wear the red shirt or the blue shirt?". This lets him have ownership in his day without giving him free reign in his closet.

The same is true for meal times. Because I am a creature of habit (and usually still half-asleep), my kids have some version of the same thing every weekday morning for breakfast. Oh, I mix it up sometimes.....occasionally the Eggos will have blueberries or something. For dinner they have whatever I am making for dinner that night and they are not involved in that decision at all. So at lunch I open things up a little bit. That is when I will ask something like "Would you like chicken nuggets or cheesy toast (grilled cheese) for lunch?" At which point he chooses one and he is excited to get it because HE picked it.

So needless to say it came as some surprise to me a couple of weeks ago when I asked Elijah if he would like PB&J or quesadilla for lunch and he said "No". This was not typical for him, so I figured he must really not want those things, so I asked if he would like a corn dog. "No." Hmmm...I wasn't sure what to do. On the one hand, I didn't want to start establishing a free-for-all restaurant type atmosphere where he gets to order his meals from a menu while his side-order cook (mommy) makes it, but this was so atypical that I didn't want to make a mountain out of a molehill.

So I did what any good mom would do. I reverted to humor as a distraction.

"Would you like to have stinky poops for lunch?"

Elijah looked up at me and with a twinkle in his eye and a sly smile on his face said "Please."

At that point we both laughed our heads off, shrieking "Ewwww!" every 30 seconds. It was the first time I can remember him getting a joke.

Fast forward to that weekend on our way home from church. I had forgotten about our shared humor earlier in the week and was simply telling Elijah what we would be doing with the rest of our day. First, we would be going home to have lunch......

"Stinky poops for lunch?" He asked with the same sly smile and the same twinkle in his eye and we laughed together again. "Ewwww!"

My husband, having no idea what was going on, looked at me and wondered what kinds of things I had been feeding our children when he wasn't looking. Let him wonder. He's just jealous because he wasn't in on the joke.

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You're cordially invited to a pity party!

There is no good way for me to write this post. No matter what I do, I am going to sound like a whiner. For the last week, I have written and re-written this post in my head, trying to find a way to sound dignified and graceful instead of like the mess I've been. I have had no success. So I'm just going to do it....I'm going to indulge myself in a big old pity party and get it over with.

I know I have been fairly absent from my blog for sometime. I thought I had gotten back on track with my last post (over a week ago!), but alas, this was not to be. Why? Because life has been nuts around here. I wish I could say it was something traumatic like a serious illness or a car accident or something (on second thought, I don't wish I could say that....I just wish my reasons were less silly), but it's been nothing remotely serious. Only irritating. Compounded upon irritating. It all started with a small case of writer's block that was soon exacerbated by the week of Halloween. Halloween, which I'm still not even sure that I celebrate (that's a story for another post), but which created a wrench in my husband's work schedule that threw me for a loop. Since my husband is an accountant and Halloween week was "end-of-month", in order for him to be home to take my boys to the Harvest carnival at church on the 31st, he had to work late the other days of the week. The following weekend was full of errands, including putting together a mall scavenger hunt that a group of friends are going on this coming weekend.

Then there was the turning point. The moment that things went from hectic and busy to downright ugly. It occurred at 2 am on Sunday, November 4th. Daylight Savings Time. The week that followed was nothing short of exhausting. To add salt to the wound, my 14 month old began cutting ALL FOUR of his molars the same week that I was trying to force his little tummy to adjust to meal times an hour later and bedtimes an hour later. He was a G-R-U-M-P! There was very little sleep to be had for anyone in our house, and I don't know about you, but when I'm not getting enough sleep, it affects everything else I do.

This past weekend was spent grocery shopping, cleaning, baking, hosting a Discovery Toys party, hosting my brother's birthday party, going out Saturday night with some girlfriend's for girls' night out, and 0h, yeah...church. Every single one of those things was super fun (well, maybe not the cleaning), and I loved every minute of it, but when it was all over, I fell in a heap on my couch. I wish I could say this was an odd weekend, but the truth is...it's November. Things don't slow down until January (I know you all know what I'm talking about) and I wouldn't have it any other way.

So here I am. Whining about things that are so insignificant I feel guilty even typing them. When I think about things in this world that are happening that are truly important, I feel ashamed for even letting this stuff get to me. But I'm a mom of two toddlers. Life is crazy. Life is wonderful. Life is beyond my capability. The last two weeks have been a struggle to keep my head above water. Fortunately I have access to a Spirit that is able to buoy me up, as long as I let Him. He has carried me through these past two weeks without losing my mind (although I think I have a few more gray hairs....what's new), but I have not had time to blog.

So friends, I really think I'm back this time. My kids' schedules are back on track, my house is clean, and the molars have broken the surface. I even think my writer's block is gone. I have some stuff I'm just dying to share with you all (you don't think I would have two crazy weeks like that without some blog-fodder coming from it, do you?). So thanks for indulging me in the pity party. I promise that I know how good I really have it. I do. But just because it's good doesn't mean it's always easy.

PS....for those of you who have asked....YES! There was a winner of the cookbook. KimO, post #138, was our big winner! I don't want to bore you with details, but long story-short, when she emailed me, my account threw her email into my spam folder and I was waiting to hear from her before I announced the winner. By the time I realized what had happened, I was in the throws of all of the above and never made it to my blog to post the results. Forgive me. I promise I will do better next time!

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Falling Backwards

I do not understand Daylight Savings Time. I do not mean that I don't know the history or reasoning behind it. I mean I don't understand why we think it's a good idea to play with time. It seems so arrogant to me. Twice a year we spend a good week resetting our internal clocks for the sake of a little more daylight. Oh, wait....we don't actually GET anymore daylight. We only get the daylight at a different time of day. And I don't know about you, but I have no need for it to be light at Ten O'clock at night, which it is around here by the end of summer. I would rather have left the clocks where they were and let the sun set at Nine. Maybe then my kids would fall asleep at a slightly more reasonable time.

I think that last sentence encapsulates my true issue with Daylight Savings Time. My kids. As much as I was irritated by the time change when I was childless, at least I knew that for every Spring Forward that cost me an hour of sleep, there was a Fall Back that would give that hour back to me. The only internal clock I had to reset was my own, and although that wasn't fun, it was do-able. Now I have to reset the internal clocks of a 2 year-old and a 14 month old. I have looked and looked and they do not have a handy zipper in the back where I can access the dial for their time keepers. So my kids have woken up at 6 am the last two days. Trying to tuck them back in and tell them it's still night time doesn't work because it's light outside. Because we're not saving daylight anymore....we're just throwing it away in the morning. Yesterday when we picked Micah up in the nursery at church he was uncharacteristically grumpy. He was crying and red faced and inconsolable. It took me a few minutes to figure out why. It was 12:45, which to his little body is still 1:45. He should have already had lunch and be napping. Instead he was still at church. All because of this silly thing we grown ups do every year called Falling Back. Don't even get me started on the ugliness that is Springing Forward. Just try telling a baby that he has to go to bed an hour earlier than his body is used to!

So as I type this, my kids think it's 8:26, but it's only 7:26. Right about the time they should have woken up. Because I can't let them think it's ok to be up as early as they were this morning, they are stuck in their beds reading books (semi) quietly until I decide to set them free. I feel like a very mean mommy, but it's the only thing I know to do. Do any of you out there have any suggestions for me?

Well, either way, happy Monday, friends! Sorry I've been gone so long. I've had a little writer's block! It took something I feel very passionately about, like Daylight Savings Time, to get me back on the horse! Go figure.

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The Stuff of Earth Competes for the Allegiance I Owe Only to the Giver of All Good Things

I just recently discovered that I can add music to my blog! This excites me to no end because I am a person who is profoundly affected by music. I am the type who loves nothing more than to get lost in a song. I enjoy a fun melody that I can sing mindlessly to as much as the next person, but my favorites are the ones that I not only sing along with, but learn from and be changed by. The songs that I have chosen to play on this blog are a few of those songs. "If I Stand" by Rich Mullins could be called my "life" song. I love the lyrics and I admire(d) the man. If you are not familiar with Rich Mullins, there is a lot to be learned from his music and his example. His biography is called "An Arrow Pointing to Heaven" and I think that about sums it up. So I hope you like my songs. Enjoy the melodies, but listen to the words. That's what they're there for.

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