Sock It To Me

My kids and their sense of humor---another thing that
I am going to be afraid of for many years to come.
It's when they try to be funny that they kind of...
well...aren't. When they don't mean to be funny,
they have me cracking up.
And yes, I am one of those mothers
who laughs at her children. Lovely K was telling me
something today about a lady in a restaurant with a
wheel barrow--only she meant a wheel chair but
said wheel barrow. I didn't know she was talking about
Joni Erikson Tada and I was just picturing this lady with
a wheelbarrow in a restaurant. When we figured out
what/who she was talking about,
it just made me laugh.
But it doesn't take a lot to make me laugh.
I love to laugh.
I'm like that guy in Mary Poppins
who floats up on the ceiling
and knows a man with a wooden leg.

Let me give you an example of a joke we might hear
on any random day around the homestead
(actually I heard this one driving down the road today) :

Sweet T: Mama, I have a riddle for you.
Me: OK
Sweet T: What did one cricket say to another cricket?

After the distraction of his siblings making bizarre guesses
to the answer of this riddle, he continued.

Sweet T: What did one cricket say to another cricket? I hate your stinking guts.

And then he laughed hysterically.


In other news... there's something going on
with the sock population around here. I know that
every one on the face of the earth
(okay...not every one on the face of the earth
because I know we are all looking at that World Vision
catalog right now and realizing that we are
fat, spoiled, ungrateful Americans)
has the same deal with socks where sometimes one
of them just evaporates.
You take off a pair of socks, put them in the hamper,
and that's the last you ever see of one of those socks.
No goodbyes. No warning.
It's just adios sock.
It's like aliens come and get it or something.
I don't know where it goes.
But what we have here at the homestead
is an epidemic of missing socks.
I mean, a ridiculous sock epidemic.
There is a pile of socks on my couch right now
and it's just MIND BOGGLING that you could have
that many socks together in a group
and none of them be mates.
What I want to know is
where are all of these socks going?
There are a lot of them missing.
A whole stinkin' lot of them.
And they've got to be somewhere.
It's not like there's a secret compartment on my
washer or dryer....or is there?
I guess if it's a secret compartment, then I wouldn't know
about it and it could be there,
stuffed to the gills with socks.
And maybe it's just some interpersonal thing with the socks themselves. Maybe they just aren't getting along. Maybe we need some kind of sock counseling.

So don't be surprised if you get a homemade puppet
from me for Christmas.
I've got to do something with all these lonely socks.

It's Raining, Men

Oh the weather outside is frightful---

and I love it.

People are complaining left and right
about this gray, dreary, rainy day, but you know me...
I love it.
I do. I love a rainy day.
And just like Eddie Rabbit, I love a rainy night also.
And it's not because I didn't have to get out in it.
I did have to get out in in. I had to take Lovely K to
piano and ballet today and then run
a couple of errands with the boys.
I just love the rainy day.
I love the gray light and the quietness that settles
on my surroundings. I love it that if everyone in the house
will be quiet for one or two seconds together,
I can hear the rain on the roof or against the windows.
I just love it. I love the rain.
I want to light the fire or burn some candles
and just cozy in for the evening.

I spent about an hour on the computer this morning
and knocked a major chunk of my Christmas shopping
out of the park. I am so glad to have that done. I really
need to sit down tonight and get out my list
and check it twice,
mark off the naughty people.
I think I am basically done for the kids now and I just have
to worry with a few more relative gifts.

I collected all the fall/Thanksgiving decor last night
and it's all standing together in the dining room,
looking like a nervous group who know they won't see
the light of day for another year once I break out their box.
I think one of the Pilgrim men is thinking about
making a run for the border.
I did whip out these two little decorative
Christmas tree-lets....little two foot tall twig-like
decorative items. I only got them out because they
are stored in the kitchen. I kind of have to get myself
talked into doing the whole "deck the halls" thing
in recent years. I like it once it is done, but it's kind of
a hassle to make it happen.
So I need to get the Christmas music cranking out
and get my holiday groove on.

Once again, I failed to find a great advent-type book
for us to read in the month of December. I looked at
different times throughout the year, but found nothing.
If you are reading this and thinking
"Oh, she needs book ------,"
then please, tell me.
Jump on the comments below.
Help a sister out.

I'm going to enjoy my cozy, rainy night.
I hope you are having a lovely night,
Dear Reader, be it rainy or not.
I hope you are getting into the holiday spirit.
I'm trying to get their myself.

I Will Survive

Remember that lady with that little blog
who put the wrong cream of whatever soup in her beef stew?
She wrote about it just before eating it--
-and was never heard from again.
Must have been some bad stuff.
Wiped out the whole family.
I can't remember who that was....


But it wasn't your faithful Bell, Dear Reader!
I'm here. I've been gone, but I'm back.
We survived the beef stew.
It was a hardly noticeable mistake, as you probably guessed.
Didn't ruin the meal or anything.
Didn't wipe out the family.
We have survived worse cooking mistakes
than that, I assure you.

Like I said, we have been gone.
We went the 50th state of Alabama for the Thanksgiving
weekend and visited with the Dobbler clan who reside there.
I have to brag on Baby J for a second here before I say
anything else. I am sure I complain all the time--that should
probably be the name of this blog (Bell's Complaints),
but I cannot complain about being on the road or away from
home with that sweet baby. He is so good. It is really like
he's not even there in the van--or maybe we don't notice
him so much because the other three are not following
his peaceful, quiet example. Or maybe it's just because he is
strapped into his little baby cocoon and can't participate
in the "Stop touching my chair!"
and "He put his foot on my head!" activity
that occupies his siblings. But he really is a good traveler
and a good shopper. He's such a sweetie pie.

He's thinking about walking.
As I watched Lloyd Dobbler and my father-in-law try to
get him to walk between them this weekend, I suddenly
wanted to say STOP! He's my BABY.
I don't think I'm ready for him to be walking yet.
He's the last baby. We don't need to rush things.

Thinking about Baby J being my baby and his approaching
first birthday makes me remember this time last year
and how we were just getting into the groove of bad things
happening. If you recall, we were just entering the phase
of constant trips to the doctor and/or hospital.
That was my early December activity last year.
So much has happened since then. And we didn't even have
any idea of what we were in for. Would I like to go back to a
year ago and relive this past year?
No thank you!
Merciful heavens. There is a reason these little gray hairs
are starting to appear on my youthful head.
And it's not old age, my friend.
I did battle with the birthday fairy yesterday
and came out on top. For my birthday I got to spend
approximately six hours in the vehicle on the road
....which is about as enjoyable as a root canal for me
....but I did have a nice birthday.
I was with my Lloyd Dobbler and my four gifts from God.
We got home from Alabama in time to have a late lunch
with my family for my birthday. My mom made the meal
that I always asked for every year on my birthday
growing up---spaghetti. I don't know if I asked for the
salad when I was growing up, but it was there.

As soon as we ate, we had to leave the kids there
and Lloyd Dobbler and I had to travel on to College Town
to buy him a new suit for up coming work related meetings.
We ended up getting a nice suit and sports coat and some
pants and two ties. (Hey---whose birthday was this!?!?)
And so it was bed time by the time we actually got home
with a loaded down van and a very tired family.
It was nice to sleep in my own bed. It would have been
really nice if my alarm clock would have forgotten
to do its job this morning.
Even now....two hours later...I'm ready to climb back
between the covers. But we have no groceries in the
house and we have to do school today and it's time to put
away all the pumpkins and pilgrims and start thinking
about decking these halls.
My brain is tired already.

Happy Monday, Dear Reader.
I hope you were ready to
hit the ground running today.

Beef Stew at the Food Court

Remember that easy, fool-proof, crock pot beef stew
that I have previously shared with you?
Well, fool-proof might need to be stricken
from the list of descriptives. I'll let you know
this evening after my family partakes of my creation.
I was happily assembling this concoction this morning;
Lovely K was practicing piano, Big E was actually feeding
Baby J applesauce, and Sweet T was deeply involved in
some game on the Leapster. It was just the normal,
lovely, happy domestic scene. And I was just being
Martha Stewart's neighbor there, chopping up the carrots
and all. I whipped out that can of cream of mushroom soup
to add to the mix. About the time I started stirring it up
I realized something wasn't right. I had not whipped
out that can of cream of mushroom soup after all.
I had mistakenly whipped out
the cream of CHICKEN
and added it to my BEEF stew.
I don't know how this is going to turn out, people.
It may be one of those lightening bolt moments
when my error creates a new family favorite.
(and there will be much rejoicing)
Or we may be bribing the children
with ice cream and candy
to get them to eat their stew at supper tonight.
It could go either way.

So while the stew is stewing
and deciding whether it will be naughty or nice,
I want to share a video with you.
When I watched this, it made me cry.
(let's not even talk about hormones, please!)
And here's what it made me think---this might be
what heaven will be like. We will have stuff to do, you know.
I don't think there will be a mall, but I do think there will
be spontaneous outbursts of praise.
From all kinds of people.
I just thought this was such a beautiful thing.
Wouldn't you love to be eating your Sbarro pizza when
one of these things unfolded right before your eyes?
I would!

The End Is Near

Hello cute Dear Reader.
And the other one.

Okay, I know I said this last year, but I'm saying it again.
If you want to have a glimpse into my childhood,
start the jukebox.
It's that Turkey song that's #1 right now.
I hate to do it to you...and that's why it's not starting
automatically right now, but it makes me laugh sometimes.
Most of the time I just skip over that first song.
It could not be any more my mom
than if she was the one singing it
in the recording. My mom always sang
(from sun up to sun down, every day!)---and that's the
kind of song she would sing. And that kind of sounds
like her voice in that recording. I'm not saying this
in a bad way. I mean, my kids are going to talk about me
and my singing someday. I can just hear them now:
"Remember how you always made up songs
about poopy diapers and sang them to the tune
of old hymns or Beatles songs?"
And then they will do it to their kids.


Friday was the end of our home school co-op
for this semester. I am always excited about having
my Fridays back when it comes to an end. But when it
comes to an end in the fall semester, we have all the
"stuff" that goes along with Christmas coming at us.
I've got to bake stuff this year to make up for last year
when I did nothing but grow Baby J and run up medical bills.
If I do nothing else, I am going to make
Martha Washington candy. OR I could skip that
and just start carrying three pounds of lard around
with me at all times....'cause that's what Martha
and her yummy candies will do to me.

After co-op me and a couple of other moms
who do not enjoy the chaos of the meal with
497 other home schooling families
---we had our own little peaceful meal
at the nearby home of one of these moms.
It was nice. These were my Bible study gals who I have come
to love so very very much in recent weeks. Our kids all play
very well together. It was such a good alternative.
I took cookies that for some unknown reason decided to
turn into ROCKS.
I was so mad.

I should never ever say that I do anything good
because the next time I do it, it will be a shambles.
I bragged on this one type of cookie and
wouldn't you know it?
They were pretty,
but you might break a dad gum tooth off
trying to eat the thing. Sigh.
And I already feel like "the weak link" in this group.
So here's one more thing they can know about me.
"Don't ask Bell to make anything.
Maybe she can bring drinks next time."
Maybe instead of a Bible study next time
we can go over some basic cooking skills.
Mercy.

Then today was Sunday
(in case you didn't know that)
and my church had a Thanksgiving meal together.
It was a nice time and a wonderful service.
Our pastor preached from Psalm 1oo....of course he got into
this whole thing about people being wrong if they ever say
Psalms instead of Psalm,
but he wasn't right in what he was saying.
That derailed my train of thought for a while.
I am willing to put great thought into
the issue of proper language usage.
I know you can't tell that
from reading this blog. I'm not
the grammarian about whom
your mother warned you,
but I have read Strunk and White.
Anyway, language faux pas aside,
the service was so nice. We had communion and
we had a testimony time and it just made me remember
things about certain people in our church that I think
I had forgotten. There are just some people in my
church family who I love so dearly.
And I know that I am not an easy person to love,
so if and when they do love me in return, it means so much.
And you know what? People everywhere are going through
such difficult stuff. Sometimes it's easy to get wrapped up
in our own little problems that we minimize the things others
are going through, but everyone is carrying a burden.
Everyone.
Why would we want to add to it?
Why would we want to announce our own
prayer request like it should take precedence
and not even let someone else speak about theirs?


I'm just so thankful that
once you come to know Jesus Christ,
whatever your burden is, He makes it lighter.
He doesn't make things all better,
but walking with Him does lighten the load.


So that's my weekend wrap up.
In case you were wondering.
Now I've got to get ready for this next week....
It's a short one on The Normal Side
of things and it will be a long one
on The Holiday Side.
Not really looking forward to it all.
By this time next week,
I think a lot of water will have passed under the bridge.

I think I'll wear my rubber boots.

No, But I Saw The Movie

I snagged this list from someone on Facebook---because I am so deep and such a scholar that I spend my time on Facebook. I should be at the library this very minute reading one novel while listening to another one on CD. It's kind of amazing and sad that I was an English major, an enthusiast of all things pertaining to language and the written word and yet I am not at all a well read individual. Not at all. So I wonder what exactly the BBC (or whoever really made this list) had in mind when compiling it. I wonder if their six book line in the sand separates the literate from the illiterate. Anyway... I put the ones I read in red.

Have you read more than six of these books?

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Read it. Loved it. So much more humor than in the theater and movie interpretations.

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

I think I've read this, but not sure. So I won't count it.

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Read it. Don't remember much about it. I remember the movie and the play more.

6 The Bible

Read it. Am reading it. Need to read it more.

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

Read it. Remember nothing about it. Welcome to public education.

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Will I be voted off the island if I confess that I have never read any of Charlie Dickens' works?

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

Read it. I remember being in 5th grade when I read it and when Laurie married Amy, I was so upset about it. I kept thinking I was reading it wrong. Had to put it down for a long time because I couldn't accept the fact that Jo and Laurie weren't going to get together in the end.

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

I've read some of them, but not The Complete....

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

Read it. Read it several times. I loved this book in high school. I need to read it again because I am sure I would still love it. Although I do remember skipping over passages where Ms. Du Maurier would describe things TOO MUCH.

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

I need to read this to my kids.

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

Read it. Read my grandmother's old copy that came out when it was a current novel. Couldn't put it down. I remember it was summer and I was a young teenager.

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

Read it several times in school. Such a simple story and teachers/professors will milk that thing for all it is worth. If I were a drunken socializer in the 1920's with a mentally unstable wife, I'd probably write in a similar manner.

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

I think I have read this. Maybe I just started it. Can't remember. I won't count them unless I know I read them for sure. Sad how many of these that I have read left no lingering impression on me.

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

I know, I know. One can hardly be considered a good home schooler if one has never read this book---or the whole series. Who ever said I was a good home schooler? But my hubby read it 104 times and my oldest child has read it more than once. The younger ones have had it read to them (by their father). Remember the part about me saying I am not well read?

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

I think I read it when I was pregnant.

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

Loved this one at the time. That was one of the first novels that was taught to me. Think I was in seventh grade.

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

Do you know how many times I have wanted to write "saw the movie" on this list? Sad.

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

I have read this book several times and I have to say, it's one of my favorite books ever. Ever. It's so not like me to like this book, but it is gripping. I have thought about doing it as a class for high schoolers at our home school co-op.

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was not one of those times when Bell read any Charles Dickens.

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I have started this one, but it's one of those books I can't read with four small children circling my chair asking questions non-stop. I have to read alone and separate. I mainly got this book and wanted to read it because of the movie Serendipity. (I am soooo deep.)

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

School. I remember seeing a production of it at the Tennessee Preforming Arts Center when I was in school and that was an amazing performance. I remember that vividly, sitting on the edge of my seat (literally) and being almost breathless at the end. I was in Junior High.

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

I think I was supposed to read this for a class in college. Alas....it is not red.

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

Read it. Found the copy of it that I read in the basement when we had the big flood this fall. I think I had to pitch it---you can't really salvage a wet paperback book. Or a whole box full of them.

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

Bought this for like a dime at a yard sale. Read the first chapter. That's all.

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

Does anyone else picture a young Mel Gibson when you think of Hamlet?

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

Best thing about the book? You don't have to fast forward over the poor mother singing. Does anyone watch the beginning of that movie? I fast forward to the part where Gene Wilder is going to come out of the candy factory. That's really where it starts for me. And yes, I realize I am talking about the MOVIE. What can I say? But I have read it. And I sang the songs by the Oompaloompas.

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So I have read 16 of these books.

Check my math. Not only am I on the verge of being illiterate, but I also did not win the prize in Math.

Sixteen. I guess that's better than six, but it's kind of sad. So many classics in there. Perhaps I should use that as my little book list now and read from it until I have at least half of the list marked off.

How many have you read?

Any of your favorites on this list?

Have You Hugged A Nurse Today?

Greetings, Dear Reader. It's me. Sleepyhead.
What in the world has happened to me?
You would think that I am staying up until 3am every night,
the way I am buried beneath the ocean in the morning
and have such a hard time getting up.
Something must have changed.
I know it has gotten colder and we did the daylight savings
time change-a-roo, but never before have either of those
things had such an effect on me. The last two mornings
it has just been crazy. Like I'm medicated or something.
And then it puts a stink on the whole day
if I get off track first thing---and trust me,
sleeping in gets the day off track.
Like today.
We're going to be messed up.
The kids are downstairs watching TV right now
and we haven't even had breakfast.
I probably just need a good swift kick.

And I don't even want to do school.
I want to watch three hours of archival interviews with Fred Rogers on YouTube or read the second half of Peter Pan to my babes. I want to do anything but school.

Yesterday after lunch we loaded up
(the babes and I and my mother)
and went to College Town. It was the last day of a special
discount I had at one of my favorite stores. I got several
things for Christmas, can scratch several names off of my list.
I was even able to buy things for the kids (by sending them
and my mom out to the van before I checked out).
AND I know you will all be as happy as I am
to know that I found a pair of jeans that fits me!
Woo hoo! All my jeans had been abused and
stretched out by the post partum days and I really needed
a new pair. And I found one.
Perfect fit. On sale.
Plus my discount.
That's why I said "woo hoo."

On the way home we stopped at Publix.
I know I have mentioned my love for Publix before.
We keep hearing these rumors that Publix is coming here,
to my Tiny Town. And the rumored location is
near the homestead here. Won't we all be excited then?
It was while I was in Publix, gathering up my listed items
at the speed of light, that I got a call informing me of
terrible news regarding a friend of mine.
Terrible news. The worst case scenario.
I don't think I have ever walked down grocery store aisles
with tears running down my face before.
Isn't it amazing the effect a phone call can have on you?

And I just have to share something with you
regarding that friend.
The friend with the terrible situation was at the hospital
yesterday and his mother, wife, and two friends were
with him. He was still in recovery while his friends and
family received the bad news. They were standing
in the corridor at the hospital when my friend's mother
began to have a moment.
I mean, it's her baby no matter how old he is.
I'd be having a moment too if I were her.
But they were standing there with this happening and
this nurse was walking down the corridor as they often do.
She walked past them, but a few feet past them,
she stopped and turned around and came back to them,
to the mother. She put a hand on each of the
mother's shoulders and she said,
"Lady, do you know the Lord?"
Now, anyone member of this group would be
a bit miffed if someone asked them under normal circumstances
if they knew the Lord.
Of course they do.
They would expect people to just assume it.
Just by looking at them or something.
Normally they would be the ones ministering to others.
Well, that's what was so great about the question
this lady posed to the mother.
It was like a reality check. She said,
"Lady, do you know the Lord?
God has this situation under control."

I have thought about that all night.
Thank the Lord for this nurse---and that she didn't
walk on by without saying what she was thinking.
What a blessing she has been to people she will never know.
God IS in control of this situation.
HE knows what is going to happen to my friend.
He has known all along.
And He will be with him (and us) all the way.

You May Think It's Funny, But It's Snot.

Sometimes the good and the yucky
are so intermingled that it seems hard to separate them.
That has kind of been how the last 14 months or more
of my life have been. It has been some of the hardest,
most UNpleasant times of my life....and yet it is a beautiful,
joyful, precious time too.
It has been both good and bad.
Ying and yang.
Negative and positive.
Joy and Pain.

"Jooooy!
And pain.
Sunshine. And Rain."
And I so wish I could post just that little blurb
from some crazy hip hop song that was out sometime
in my youth. I just looked it up on YouTube (of course)
and I can't get just the clip I want--where they say
"Joy and pain! Sunshine and rain!"
--and I don't want to make you watch or listen to the
whole thing. Okay...maybe I could make you watch this....
Here are two white girls lip-syncing that song
and it's kind of funny.
They are just such gangstas.
Especially the foil on their teeth.
(You can hear the first 13 seconds of this
and have all that you need
to know what I was hearing in my head
--and I know just how much you want to hear
exactly what is in my head!)



They are so white.
That would be me.
I'm so glad I didn't have a way to publicly broadcast
my silliness when I was young.

But joy and pain--that's what I was saying.
The mingling of the good and the bad.
That's how things have been.

And that's how today is,
but on a very minor scale.
It is the kind of day I love.
Gray and quiet. Rainy.
I'm playing the Christmas music softly in the background.
School is underway.
It's all very cozy.
I love days like this.

At the same time,
Lloyd Dobbler and I are in a knock-down fight
against some sort of cold that is determined to settle
into both of us. I have had major battles with this
relentless bother for days. I'll think I have it whooped
and then it jumps out of the bushes on me when I am
walking home. Today it is just being a pest.
A constant, annoying pest.
It is the little brother of colds.
It won't go away.
It isn't going to kill me, but it just won't leave me alone.

I could not read the History lesson aloud to the babes
this morning. I tried. But it's hard to read when you
feel like the entire Pacific Ocean is inside your head.
My head today is like one of those conch shells
---if you put your ear up to it, you'll hear the ocean.
So I couldn't read.
I'm hoping I will be able to later.
We've got to explore this New World
and be ready for some Early American History
after Christmas.

I have made a big pot of zoop
--heavy on the garlic, I am afraid, because I couldn't smell it.
So I kept adding garlic until I could smell it.
Now that I do smell it,
I realize that it's very hard for me
to actually smell anything right now....
So this might be Garlic Zoop.
With a side of garlic.
(Can you really have too much garlic in anything?)

But what does a pot of soup do on a bleary day?
It just makes it cozier.
So even though I made it in effort to fight off the YUCK,
it's a good thing.
A very good thing.

So it's more of the good and bad, walking hand in hand.
Keeping balance, I guess.
We don't want all bad
and we never have all good.
So both together works out fine.

I must go now and blow an octopus out of my cranium.

Time Flies When You Hit November

We have hit that part of the year
when we seem to be moving at a faster speed.
The days seem so short.
Maybe it's because I am looking ahead at what we have to do
and what I want to do and thinking about all of that
while I am doing today's activities....and then, boom,
it's bedtime.
Another day has gone to the presses.

Like this weekend.
I can't believe it's over.
I'm sitting here thinking "Wasn't it just Friday?"
I mean, really, I thought it was Friday night
and I closed my eyes for just a second
-- and now it's Sunday night
and we are about to jump into a new week.
Not just any week.
The week before Thanksgiving week.
And you know what happens after Thanksgiving
--the parade of insanity leading into Christmas begins.
And while my family does have a lot of activities going on,
I really make a point of not letting it get too out of hand.
I hear some of these stories from other women
who are just crazed by their holiday schedules,
and I have to say, it's kind of their own fault.
They can scale back as much as they want to
--they just have to be willing to do it.
I am very willing to scale back.
I can't handle too much.
I don't do great handling very little,
so there's no question about me
broadening the scope of things I do.
And today I got one of those BARKING DOG responses
from somebody concerning holiday activities
and it just made me think
"That's what I don't want to be like!"
Do you ever have those moments?
You see somebody handle a situation in a way
that you are very likely to do the same way
or actually have done in the past
...and it's just like a little eye opening experience.
"Note to self: never act like that again."

I don't want to be the barking dog to the people around
me who are just asking a question. I'm afraid that's too often
the case. My poor family gets the worst of it.
That's one thing I have been learning from this Bible study
that I've been doing....though you wouldn't think
I'd be convicted about my tongue doing a study on the
book of Ruth...but it has come from that.
Part of it too is in discussing the things we do on these
Monday nights, I just see this big difference in the way
I look at the scripture and the way these other women look
at it. I think a lot of "good church people" (like me) would
think they know more or are doing better than these
other women and their families,
but I don't think so.
They are reading the scripture and studying it
with open eyes and open hearts.
And a commitment to obedience.
If they see something in there that doesn't
jive with their lives, they change it.
Even if it is extreme.
And isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

I think "we" (I'm referring to myself and people like me)
get caught up in the way our church does something
or the way something has always been
and it's almost like we will try to accommodate scripture
but we aren't going to do anything to rock the boat
in the things that have been established.
Do you know what I mean?
If the scripture says X, then we better be doing X
...and it doesn't matter what our church or our denomination
or our family or Christians in the south have always done.
The scripture is the final authority.
That's the rule book. That's the pattern for our lives.

I just see so many people
(and I am including myself in this---wait,
I need to just forget others and
talk about MYSELF in this, don't I?)
Let me start over.
I see myself falling into the pattern of
doing the church thing.
I go. I have always gone.
I participate. I serve. I do my part.
I know how it all works.
I know what I'm supposed to do.
I know the words to the hymn without looking.
I can finish the verse
or tell you where it's located in the Bible.
I know how to act in various situations.
I've been there my whole life.
But sometimes I wish it wasn't that way.
Sometimes I wish I was that person straight off the street
to whom their relationship with Jesus is a new, fresh thing
and they are undergoing the changes.
Sometimes I wish
it was all new to me.
That's kind of where these friends of mine are---
they are not new Christians at all.
But they didn't grow up in church and
they don't have Christian parents. They don't
have the history and the roots that I have.
And so they are learning and digging for themselves
and it's all new to them.
And somehow finding that daily application is so much
easier to them. They want to be sure the reason
behind things and they aren't going to do something
for superficial reasons or to look good in the eyes of
other church people.

I find myself looking at things
differently as a result of being around them.
I find myself realizing that while I may know a lot of things,
I'm not applying all that I know.
And I have a lot more that I need to learn too.
So I should NOT be resting on any laurels over here.
Not that I have laurels to be resting on.
But it's just like being with them has pointed out to me
that I've kind of gotten off the path.
I've gotten lazy.
Complacent.
I don't want to be that way.
And I don't have to be.
I don't want to play games.

I don't want "Christianity"
to be a compartment in my life.

I want it to be my life.

It is my life.

The only part that matters.
What else is of any value?
Nothing.



And now it's late.
I've got to get to bed.
I don't want to start my week off badly.
I don't want to miss out on that special time with God
when I just feel like He takes the lid off of me and fills me up.
I want to get all of that that I can.
I need it.
So I've got to get in this nice, cozy bed behind me
and get some rest so that I can get up tomorrow
before my offspring start rolling out of bed
and be ready to get my daily load
of benefits from the Lord.

I don't know if any of that made any sense to you.
Goodnight Dear Reader.

I Can't Drive 55 (unless I am in a 30 mph zone)

When you have just had your hair cut
and someone describes you using the word
shocking,
what is that supposed to mean?

This happened to me today.
I really didn't get something crazy done to my hair.
Just the regular cut. The same thing, just shorter---and not
really shorter than before,
but shorter than it was this morning.
(My hair grows so fast.)
Anyway, she (the stylist) did straighten my hair.
The gal who does my hair likes to straighten it. Lloyd Dobbler
doesn't like my hair straight and I don't have time to do it
(it takes her a looong time to straighten my hair.
I have a lot of hair. It covers my entire head.)

Have I ever been as amusing
to anyone else as I am to myself?

So while it's a nice change, it's not something I am
going to start doing all the time.
I guess if I had a different life
than I have, I might have more time to mess with my hair.
But I am not skilled at the whole cosmetology world anyway
...and having difficult hair like I do,
there's just not a good chance
of a great outcome. I have learned, over the years,
not to fight my hair. I just try to beat it into submission
(somewhat) and spray something on it
and go out to face the world.

So when my daughter meets me at the door
and immediately describes the follicles on my head as
shocking,
I just didn't know what to think.

Here's what straight hair did for me today:
it got me out of a ticket.
Oh my goodness.
For thirty seven years the police have left me alone,
and now they just can't resist pulling me over.
Well, it's not like there have been a flurry of encounters
with the law. This was the second one.
You remember earlier in the fall, I got pulled over
with all the kiddos with me. And the cuteness of the kids
along side my horror at being pulled over for speeding
for the first time in my life--that saved me that day.
But tonight?
It must have been the straight hair.
I don't know what else it could have been.

What has happened to me?
Have I changed my last name to Earnhardt?
Has all the weight gain from this last pregnancy
settled in my right foot?
I don't TRY to speed.
I don't set out with that goal in mind.
And if I catch myself doing it, I slow down.
I even set the cruise control to monitor the situation.
So I don't know what has come over me.
And this nice police man
(who, I have to say, was a bit on the flirty side)
gave me a written warning.
I didn't know what to do with it.
I mean, it's like a note sent home
to your parents from school.

"Bell talks too much during class."

Did you ever have a note sent home from school?

"Bell has trouble focusing
on the task at hand."

It's just like the teacher's way of guaranteeing that you
would get in trouble at home. You hadn't done anything
to really get yourself in trouble, but she wanted
you fussed at all the same.

"Students like your daughter
usually end up driving much
too fast as adults."

Actually, I don't remember being sent home with a note.
I'm sure it happened, but I don't' remember it.
This may come as a big shock to you,
but I don't have any real skeletons in my closet.
I mean, I'm telling you about my big
BRUSH WITH THE LAW
and it's the second time in my life that I've
been pulled over for speeding.
And I got a note sent home.

"Bell needs to focus more on her driving
and less on the cool song on the radio."

At least I didn't get a ticket.
I can still say
that I've never gotten a ticket.
So Lloyd Dobbler
(receiver of multiple tickets in the past)
can't cluck too loudly when I come in
with a note from the policeman.

"Bell needs to focus on her rate of speed when driving
and not the straightness of her hair."

I Can See Clearly Now

The kitchen looks
so very much better!

I just had to show you.
I was not going to go
to bed tonight until
I got those counter tops done.
So let's look together
at the progress made today:

If you will recall, things looked bad this morning.

This was the island.
I'm not even going to think about why there was
a roll of toilet paper on there---or a pair of my son's socks.
Here's the island now:


You can also see the other area
behind it where the cook top is.
Oh that I could keep that island clear.
At one point, not too long after we moved into this house
and I realized that this island is a clutter magnet,
I had this big hot pink sign that stood up
with a message warning people not to deposit stuff there.
I wonder what I did with that sign....

I don't know if you noticed in that above area
the change in the space where the phone
and answering machine live over there by the cook top.
This morning it looked like this:

Tonight it looked like this:


I brought in another basket and actually added a function
to this space. Now the bills go there to hang out with each
other until they get paid.

The sink area was cluttered this morning:


Even the little corner over there by the
appliance garage was junked up:


Doesn't it look better now?


This is something I have done so many times
and I know I will have to do it againd...and again...
and again... and if I stay on top of it, it can be something
done in five minutes each day rather than letting it get to
the sad state it was in today.
It really does make a difference
in the atmosphere of that room.
The kitchen is the heart of the home.
I spend most of my time there, either cooking or
cleaning up or feeding kids or
sitting at the kitchen table doing
school work or reading aloud to them.
It's going to feel a lot better tomorrow
to have things neat and tidy.

Bonus points to me today
for taking baby steps towards
the death of clutter!

I may tackle the butler's pantry tomorrow.
It's bad.
(Michael Jackson wrote a song about it.)
I thought about snapping a picture of it tonight
when I was taking these "after" pictures,
but it was too scary.

No Man Is A (kitchen) Island

If you know somebody who is about to have a baby,
read this post and find out something you can do for them
that will be truly very helpful in a practical way.
I remember a friend and I going to some one's house once,
we drove an hour to get to her house and I can't remember
now if she'd just had a baby or had surgery, but she had
several small children and was physically out of
commission. Maybe she was on bed rest at the end
of a pregnancy. Whatever it was, she needed help.
We drove down there and just went in and cleaned her
bathrooms and changed the sheets on all the beds in the
house and did some laundry. I remember thinking what a
practical thing that was to do.
And I love practical.
I'm a big fan of practical.
And I hope it was a blessing to her.
I hope that, when I am in a different stage in my life,
I will be able to do this for others much more than I am now.
This is kind of what my mother-in-law has done for me
when my babies were born. She comes and stays with us
and just takes over the domestic scene. I have been blessed
in not having to deal with everything being left undone
at that time of life. I will definitely do this for my Lovely K
when she is a new mother and, if they want me to, I will do it
for my daughters-in-law.
(It's weird to think that I will have
daughters-in-law someday.)
I just thought that post shared some good points.
So I hope you will take the time to read it if you want
to be a help to a new mommy you know.

And now I will share with you the ugly truth:
my kitchen counter tops are frequently out of control.


If I referred to them as "hot spots" as Flylady does,
this would be an area of my home that
is a constant blazing fire.
I do fight it.
I am always clearing them off, getting rid of things, trying to put things away. But it just seems like the easiest place in the world for clutter to collect. Mail. Books. Toys. Coupons. Whatever somebody has in their hand and sets down. And then it is THE KITCHEN so there all that goes along with that.


So today I just thought,
with a disgusted sigh,
that I had to tackle these
kitchen counter tops once again.
And I know this is not a "once for all" job.
As soon as somebody checks the mail today,
there will be another pile.


But I will fight it!
I will not let it get so crazy again.
If I just give it five minutes every day,
I can stay on top of it.

So I'm showing you these pictures
in keeping with the same idea weight loss plans have
when they take a picture of you at your fattest
and post it somewhere.
I will show you cleaned up counters later.
Then we will have the before and after.
And I will strive to keep the "after"
as the "happily ever after."

Sometimes I Wake Up Grumpy (sometimes I let her sleep)

Greetings, Dear Reader. How art thou?
I hope you are off on the right foot for this new week.
It has been a nice Monday morning here at the homestead.
We had a bit of a slow start this morning. I have gotten out
of my routine and it has kind of messed me up.
I don't know why it is suddenly
so hard for me to roll out of bed on time in the
mornings lately. I have just been so tired! I'm thinking
change in weather and sinuses---that's what I am going to
blame anyway. And now, after the time change,
I find myself dealing with daylight first thing this morning.
I mean, daylight.
It was all there. I forgot that was going to happen.
And then Lloyd Dobbler was trying to talk to me
in the bathroom this morning. What is up with that?
After 16 years of marriage, you would think that he
would know he can't talk to me first thing in the morning.
There's no call for it. If you want to get on
the fighting side of me,
or at least the side that is most likely
to hit you over the head with something,
come up to me about 30 seconds after my feet
hit the ground in the morning and just start talking.
Even thinking about someone doing that annoys me.
Unless some thing or some body is on fire,
there's just no excuse for it.
There's got to be some sort of buffer of time
before you have to interact with people in the morning.
I guess I'm just not a morning person.
And wouldn't you know that I have three children
who wake up with smiles on their sleepy little faces,
ready to finish the sentence they fell asleep in the middle of
the night before. So far Baby J seems to be a grump
in the morning like me. That's not a trait of mine
that I was hoping to find in my offspring.
I was looking more for a left handed preference.
I keep telling Baby J that he's my last hope for a left-handed
child and that if he will just simply be left-handed
then he will be my favorite.
You would think that's a offer that is hard to refuse.
And yet I get no commitment from him.
He uses both hands to smash crackers into his cranium.
He can use either hand to pick up a rattle
and shake it like a Polaroid.
So I don't know how that's going to turn out.
But he has the opportunity
to claim the title of Mama's Favorite.

And I'm not even joking.
I take my plight as a left-handed person
very seriously.

This has been such a cozy morning.
It's brisk outside and we are all snug inside.
We have been doing school and I have gotten almost
all of my so-called "lesson plans" done through the end
of this year (this calendar year, not this school year).

I made a batch of these cookies this morning
and they are wonderful. I think I will make
them for the big cookie exchange
if I have my act together enough to participate
in that this year. The kids have been listening to their
friend, Elisabeth Elliott on cassette tape this morning.
Three cheers for Mrs. Marathon for finding me that
boom box with a working cassette tape player in it!
It's so lovely to have everyone busy about their morning stuff
and have our friend, Elisabeth Elliott speaking to us
in the background. We have been playing the tapes
of her reading Christmas stories.
It was a 3 tape set and tape #2 is missing.
I hope we find it.
If you have never heard these, you are missing out.
I think the kids like best when she reads
Beatrix Potter's The Tailor of Gloucester.
At lunch we listened to the one where she reads
Pearl S. Buck's Christmas Day In The Morning.
That story just brings tears to my eyes. It's so sweet.
And when it got to this one part, where the dad discovers
his Christmas gift, Big E was just grinning from ear to ear
as he listened to that. Precious story.
You need to read that if you aren't familiar with it.
Here's a version of it if you would like to read it for yourself,
but it's so much better if your friend Elisabeth Elliott
reads it to you....while your kids do their handwriting
and the baby plays with blocks
and you make peanut butter cookies
...that makes it really enjoyable.
A lovely, peaceful, cozy, ordinary morning.
My favorite kind.

p.s. I just clicked on that link I gave you
for the Pearl S. Buck story and
that might not have been the best link.
I never fully investigate these links that
I give you. I always hope I'm not
rick-rolling you. Anyway, there are
a lot of typos in that. Like when the
boy hugs his dad, what he really
says is "I want to be good"
not "I want to be God."
Sigh.

Perry Como

I am going to need that extra hour of sleep tonight.
Last night when I went to bed,
I turned my alarm clock off knowing I didn't have to
get up this morning until the little people started
stirring around and/or wailing.
That was so lovely.

I trekked back to College Town with my mother
this afternoon to return several items purchased on
Thursday's shopping trip.
I don't know why I try to buy pants for my children
when they are not with me. Especially Big E---I have
returned to the annual frustration of trying to find pants
for that boy. I think it would be worth uprooting us all and
moving to a tropical climate so that I could dress him
in shorts year round. And short-wearing weather has come
to a screeching halt here in Middle TN.
(There was sleet on Friday afternoon--I saw it with my own eyes.)
Finding pants that are both long enough
for him and that he can actually hold up just seems to
be like dreaming the impossible dream.
And if you say to me "Have you tried the slim fit?"
then I am going to have to drive over to your house
and slap you.
I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I will have to do this.
Of course I have tried the slim fit!
I have tried the slim fit with the adjustable waist
---and I have adjusted the adjustable waist to the max
....and do you see that boy wearing new pants?
No.

So this is my sad story today.


I so want to tell you about the ridiculousness
of the middle part of my day,
but I just can't even bring myself to think about it.
If I go there in my mind again, I will be so mad.
And it's late and I'm very very tired.
So let's just let it go.
Let's just take a deep breath and realize
that some people are never ever going to change
and they don't care how hard
that makes life for people around them.
Okay.
So take that deep breath, Bell,
and just let it go.
Let's put on our cozy pajamas and crash.
I'll be soaring over never-never land
in a matter of seconds.

John Ritter

When I first sat down with my calendar
and started planning out this school year,
I marked off tomorrow for myself.
Friday will be (brace yourselves)
50 days until Christmas.
This is the day that myself and a dear friend of mine
go shopping each year---my first venture
into Christmas shopping for that year.
Since she and I both have our home schooling
co-op on Friday, we can't go when it is
officially 50 days until Christmas.
So we are going tomorrow,
when it is 51 days until Christmas.

Can you believe it?
Fifty days is not that long.
Not at my age anyway.
I say this to my kids and they think I am crazy.
But I don't think Christmas
seems as distant to kids nowadays
as it did when I was a kid. They can go to Walmart and
see the Christmas stuff being put out right after they
take down the back-to-school displays.
When I was little, Christmas decor didn't appear in the
stores until after Thanksgiving.
I know you remember this.
I know some of you are older than me
(and probably love the Bee Gees, you freaks).
You remember when they weren't cramming
the next holiday down our throats before we
could enjoy the current one.

Okay...today I listened to this little speech by this guy
who is, to some degree, a minimalist. I think I have
listened to it three times so far. I am going to listen
to it again after I get done talking to you.
I have just really thought a lot about what he has to say.
We are talking so much about "down-sizing" our life.
That's the term we use.
"Down-sizing."
Maybe what I am secretly longing to do in my life is
take steps in the same direction this guy has. Towards less.
I don't like the term "minimalist." I always think of that
as plastic chairs from Sweden and cold, white, stark rooms.
I don't like that. I like warmth and happiness.
So maybe I could be like the hippie form of a minimalist.
Anyway, if you'd like to hear
what I've been listening to, go here.

By the way,
if you are keeping score at home,
I get bonus points for staying awake
all day long today.
Let's not subtract points for amount of time
spent in pajamas. Let's just add them up for me
and my super powers when it comes to fighting against
the chemically induced sleep.
Me and my faithful side kick, Caffeine.

And I am NOT taking another one of those pills tonight.
I can't shop in my sleep.

Hank Williams Jr.

Were you disappointed yesterday
when the post wasn't all about that hip-hop group
from when I was in high school?
I don't know if I even got their name right.
Boyz II Men?
Boyz 2 Men?
Something like that.
Maybe I should start naming every post
by the name of somebody famous about whom
I have absolutely nothing to say.
Like Boyz 2 Men.
Or Joni Mitchell.
Or Levi Strauss.

Okay...this is the second day that I have taken
this little white innocent-looking pill that is
simply supposed to make nasal congestion a thing of the past.
I think this will be the last day I ever take one of those
things unless I am on my way to some kind of sleep study.
Or Rip Van Winkle reenactment.
I don't think I would be as sleepy if I had taken
an actual sleeping pill. Yesterday I kept excusing
the pill, not blaming the little white innocent-looking pill
because I had had a long, busy weekend and then
Monday morning we had that field trip and I didn't really get
home to collapse until nine thirty Monday night
--so it made sense that I might be tired.
But today I know.
Oh, I know.
I've got your number,
little white innocent-looking pill.

So, my #1 goal for today,
my MIT (most important thing),
is staying awake.
Stayin' awake.
hi-hi-hi-hi stayin' awaaaaaaaaaaaaaake.
And yes, I am singing the BeeGees.

I daily read a blog of a Bee Gee lover,
and I feel like I've been disconnected from something.
I haven't been able to read her blog since she
got a new puppy (unless I want to go through a long
and annoying wrestling match with my stupid computer).
So I don't know what's going on with that person
....who I don't even know....But I feel confident that
even though I am not taking daily glimpses into her life,
she is still loving the BeeGees.

I also recently discovered
that my very good lovely friend Mrs. Marathon
is also a BeeGees fan.
I have to admit that I was a bit shocked
to have this bit of information
revealed to me. I might never have known it had I not been
with both Mrs. Marathon and her sister
when a Bee Gees song started playing
in the store we were at and the sister
of Mrs. Marathon started revealing the deep, dark
family secrets. Like this: Mrs. Marathon even had
posters of the Bee Gees on her walls.
Now....both Mrs. Marathon and the aforementioned Blogger
(whose blog I am missing) are like ten years older
than me. So maybe something happened in that ten year
period of time, some reconfiguring in the
creation department, to make females have
a completely different chemical make up,
I'm talking like a change on the DNA level,
because I would have to be changed that much
to think that any of those Bee Gee guys was attractive.
It just kind of makes my face squinch up when I try to
understand that. They are so hairy. And pale.
Those twins
(are they twins? the two smaller ones?)
just kind of scare me.
And their clothes---my goodness.
I know it was the 70's...but I just
can't get past their clothes.

I have another friend who is the same age as these
two women and she made a different choice.
It wasn't like the Bee Gees were the only option.
I know that she was a big T.G. Shepherd fan.
Wait--was it T.G. or T.J.?
He was a singer. From the 1970's.
"Hey...won't you play....another somebody done somebody wrong song....and let me be alone....while I miss my baby....while I miss my baby..."
Okay. I looked it up.
It's B.J. Thomas.
Not T.G. Shepherd.
In my defense, there was a T.G. Shepherd.
He sang that "there's only one Mona Lisa" song.
I just looked it up.
He really thought he was the ladies man,
didn't he? That T.G. Shepherd.
Him and his perm and his acid washed jean jacket.

And can I just say right here that I love youtube.
I do. Google is good for finding information and stuff,
but being the deep and intellectual person that I am,
I find youtube to be the place I go.
To see everything from the boys from Kings of Leon singing an old gospel song with their mother to my favorite scenes from thirtysomething.
Or who T.G. Shepherd was.

And of course there's this:





Lloyd Dobbler recently exposed my children to this mnah-mnah song. And if one person utters those words anywhere under our roof, the rest of us have that song stuck in our heads for the rest of the day! We have sang it together so many times...but it's when it sneaks into our suppers and tries to break out in the middle of serious school work that I just wish I could choke that hairy little muppet.....

Mnah-mnah.

Have a good day, Dear Reader.

And stay awake.

Boyz 2 Men

This is the view from my front porch.
Lest you think we live out in the middle of nowhere,
that's a small bank of trees between us and the
road in front of us. We are on a hill looking over
a subdivision. We're not out in the boonies.
But I am always thankful for the trees around the
perimeter of our property come spring and fall.
They are beautiful both of those times of year.
Probably more so in the fall. But I'm kind of partial
to fall. I am sure I've just never ever told you
how much I like this time of year.


Speaking of
things that
I really love,
here are my beautiful babes on Saturday, getting ready to go knock on a few relatives' doors and drive off with all of their candy. We did distribute the pumpkin muffins this year and I think that went over well.
This picture was taken just after we stopped one of the little contests that spring every moment out of nothing. I am speaking of my sons and their competitive nature. I distintly remember one day when Sweet T was a very small guy and Big E (who was still a little guy himself) was showing me how fast he could run from one point to the next. Sweet T watched carefully and as soon as Big E was finished, he said "I faster!" And it was like somebody pushed a button that day. They compete over just about anything. Drives me crazy. Even in taking this picture---their father instructed them to cross their light sabers for the picture. They did this, but Sweet T ever so slightly moved his just about an inch higher than Big E's. So of course Big E had to slip his light saber just an inch tallen than Sweet T's. And so it was until Lloyd Dobbler said, "Stop!" I wonder what this will translate into as they get older and how the dynamics will change when Baby J is big enough to join in. My dad and his brothers are fiercly loyal and tightly knit together but they are so competitive and always have been. And I have known other brothers who have been this way to the point of insanity. I just gaze into the future sometimes and wonder how these things will develop and change over time. Will they be fighting over a girl someday?

It's hard for me to imagine
what these little guys of mine
will be like when they are men.
That just seems so very far
into the future,
but I know that we are
laying the foundations
for that manhood
right now.

This makes me realize
that I need to be
paying attention to what I am doing.
I need to be doing a better job!
But I know from time to time
I do something right. I was thinking
about this today when we were going over

our Bible verses. I love the Scripture memory system

we use. It's so easy and so effective. The one who
seems to have the best skill with the memory verses
right now is Big E. He has the best recall of my three
verse quoters and he usually can quote the verse without
a "first word" prompt. And I try to really applaud him
for this (not literally applaud him) because I want him
to see this as a hugely important thing. Sure it's great
to be a good soccer player or whatever else he tries to
succeed at. But I want him to see that I value his
efforts in spiritual matters more than anything else.
What's going to help him in future life?
Having God's word hidden in his heart will help him
more than anything else I can implant in him.

I'm also teaching him to clean toilets.
All my boys will clean the toilets as they grow up
(once they are big enough to learn).
Because really, who makes the bathroom nasty?
Is it women? No. It's not.