Lent

I grew up in a town with 4 options for a church of my religion. The Spanish speaking one, the ultra conservative one, the ultra, ultra conservative one and the last one, sort of a middle of the road, medium sized church. We went to the latter. We never spoke of lent in my church. I knew about it because the rest of the churches in my town were Catholic. However, lent was never brought up. I never had to choose what to give up, I never had to make the sacrifice.

A few years ago it became “all the rage” to give something up for lent. I felt like all the cool Christians were doing it. I felt like they were doing it to be cool, to make a statement, to rub their Godliness in others faces. I know that I was probably wrong in that, now that I am so much older and wiser. Insert sarcasm here.

Yesterday was Fat Tuesday and while we were making our dinner I mentioned that we should give something up for lent. It had been on my mind for a few weeks and since yesterday would have been the day to decide if we would participate, I mentioned it.

Josh immediately said, “You should give up Freebirds and Papa Murphys!” I almost died on the spot. He had me pegged. Because we had never participated in lent before, we discussed with the children the basic idea. We should sacrifice something small to say thank you to Jesus and God for giving up something SO very BIG. Emily immediately replied with, “Wow, Mom, use God against me.” We all had a good laugh at that one.

So after we sat for dinner we discussed several options for the kiddos to choose from. Some of the options were candy, computer time, Wii time, texting, brownies, soda and homework. It was decided after much debate that the kids would give up soda and Josh and I would give up Freebirds and Papa Murphys. It was an interesting time of conversation in our house around the dinner table, one that I enjoyed and am glad I have to reflect on.

So this year, we are participating in lent. Because we should be able to give up something that we enjoy for 40 days. The Lord gave up so much more than that for us.

My rockin' New Years Eve!

Josh was working on New Years Eve and Emily had gone to spend the night at a friends house to "work" on her cience Fair Project, leaving Jacob and I to fend for ourselves. Jacob was about to make his regular dinner on the fly, Taco meat, when I thought it would be way more fun to cook up a pizza and watch Wall-E, which we had picked up from the Red Box the night before. Jacob was game, so I let him make the pizza all by himself- with a little direction from me.

Now when I say, "Make a pizza" I don't mean make the dough. My mother used to make the dough from scratch when I was a kid, but once these little pouches came out where all you have to do is add water, she went to that and that is all I have ever done with my family. So here is Jacob puring in the dough.




Stir it up! He loves to stir!


Got to grease the pan. I remember having to Cisco it with my fingers whn I was a kid. It was SO gross. And my mom always made me do it!


Spreading the dough out. He did a very good job. I had to help him in the end, but he almost did it all himself.


Extra seasoning. Got to make it our own!


And the sauce. We don't use anything fancy. What ever we have in the house already. This is some sort of 4 cheese sauce.


Add the cheese, oops! Caught ya! He loves to eat shredded cheese. I think he may have eaten more than he got on the pizza!


But the smile makes it all good!


In the oven! Yummy!

Once it was done, we snuggled up and watched Wall-E, the third viewing for him and the first for me. I enjoyed my rather tame ringing in of the new year. But I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Al Gore, I will tell you about the REAL inconvenient truth.

Blah, blah, blah, global warming. I have my own thoughts on global warming, and what we as humans need to think/do about it. They are similar to Amy’s, if not even a little more non-earthy.

But I hate me some Wal-Mart.

You see, every time I walk through those electric doors I just hate myself a little. I am never happy when I leave, always angry and yelling at the kids. The lines are always SO long and the help leaves a little to be desired. And the prices, they are not that much cheeper. Before this weekend, I couldn’t tell you when the last time I went to Wal-Mart was. It had been at least 6 months. I usually can last on my ban of Wal-Mart for about that long, until I decide to give it ago again.

Last weekend I had dropped of Emily at dance class and after lunch I needed to pick a few things up for our up-coming trip. Lots of random things, which I could have pickled up at other stores, but honestly, it would have taken longer than the hour I had to do it in. So I told Jacob we had to go to Wal-Mart. He responded with, “No, mom, I am staying in the car.”

I have passed my hatred for the Wal-Mart onto my offspring, isn’t it wonderful?

I tell him, tough, we have to pick up things like goggles, a pink tank top, iron on transfer paper, sharpies, shorts and crayons. It has to be done at Wal-Mart, we don’t have time to go to Michaels, Target, Kohls, JCPenny, and the outlet mall. We just have to do it.

“Don’t make me go in there” is his response to me.

I had to pull the mom card to get him out of the car.

We walked into the giant supercenter close to my daughters dance class and got to work. We made it out alive, with $100 less in my checking account and a lot of stuff that could have been purchased somewhere else, but darn it Wal-Mart, you are too convenient, too available and too affordable, and that is the real inconvenient truth.

Yeah! Spring!

What a weekend we had.

My parents drove in from New Mexico for a short, but great visit. They unfortunately had to endure what we in our household call, “The gear up for the end of the year.” The months of April and May usually consist of weekend so packed full of events and meetings that rarely have a minute to relax. And that was when only Emily was participating in “extra-curricular” activities. Luckily we made the decision long before we were to emotionally involved with activities that the children could only participate in Scouts and one other activity. Whatever that other was, was up to the child. This year, Emily has chosen dance (jazz) and Jacob played soccer in the fall and has just started his spring sport of football (his dad is SO proud).

At the end of the school year, comes the recitals, and end of year ceremonies and camp-outs. And a full schedule. It makes every morning, day and evening a time where we are trying to remember where we are supposed to be and what equipment should we have?

Lets just take for example the coming week:
Monday: Emily has dance practice. This week is also the time the kids are supposed to bring there suggested clothes for the dance recital which is in 6 weeks. I have a yummy massage scheduled to deal with the stress from last week which leaked into my back.

Tuesday: Jacob has football practice. Josh is the assistant coach, so he has to be there as well.

Wednesday: Both children have dentist appointments and I have a regular doctor appointment. We also are going to have the tires balanced on the van that day. Josh is also going to start the process of moving his mother (more on that on Saturday). There is church in the evening and I have a tentative photo-shoot with Amy- which I hope we can get fitted in.

Thursday: By this point if we have any homework which not been completed, we have to get it done, and practice the spelling/vocabulary words which we may or may not have had time to actually study earlier in the week. More moving plans for Josh.

Friday: Gear up for Saturday. This maybe the only night in which we stay home and just chill out as a family. I know that the MIL is planning to move some of the things she will be taking with her to California into our place.

Saturday: Seriously, the day with no time left and its still a week away. This is the day in which Josh will be moving his mom out of her apartment and into a storage shed and into our house for a few days before she moves to California to move back with her parents. Jacob also has his first football game and Emily has dance class. I guess I have broken the only one thing per child plus scouts, because Emily is in 2 different dance classes. I have no excuse except that she likes the second one, it’s free and she gets a much better work out from it than she does from her jazz dance class. The church is also having a children’s event on Saturday afternoon that the kids want to attend. MIL is moving in with us until Wednesday and I am sure there is something else that I am forgetting.

Sunday: Church in the morning and small groups in the evening. I might get to the grocery in the afternoon. Ugh, the worst time to go is Sunday afternoon. But Josh will be sulking since he won’t be at the race in Dallas.

So that’s just what we have planned for this week. Are you tired yet? I am and its only Monday morning.

We did have a great weekend and I think I made some great contacts and hope that all that was attempted this weekend, will not be for nothing.

Who me, crazy?

For the last six months or so as I lay in bed I felt as though I might slip right out. You see, when you sat on the bed it felt fine. It was only after you laid down and tried to get comfortable that you realized something was wrong. I would mention this to Josh and he would laugh it off, and call me “crazy.” But I knew I wasn’t. I couldn’t be. I would start the night off down about a foot away from our headboard; see: wall. In the morning I would be crammed up in the corner between the wall and the night stand. I move around at night, but not that much.

I tried to figure out what was wrong with the bed, because something obviously had to be “wrong” and I was not slowly slipping into crazyland. I flipped the mattress, I flipped the box springs. I moved it around. I had finally given up and basically moved my sleeping in the middle of the bed in order to have a only slightly slopped sleeping experience rather than one that mirrored the alps ski slopes.

My sleep had become restless and downright painful because of this problem. I woke up nearly every morning with a crick in my neck from trying to keep myself from slipping of the bed. Between my time at the computer and my time in bed, my poor neck never got a break.

Yesterday I decided to clean our bedroom. I even documented the before and plan to document the after-once we finish the final stages today. I started on my side of the bed, under the night stand. I simply plunged my hand between the bed and the nightstand to pull up whatever treasure had fallen off the night stand or had be brought there by the dogs. You will never guess what the first thing I pulled out was.



The wheel to the bedframe. The wheel had fallen off! I wasn’t crazy! The bed HAD been at a slope. I had been slipping off. I grabbed the wheel and proudly walked down the hallway and forcefully showed Josh the wheel.

“Ha!” I said, “I am NOT crazy!”
“You may have been right about the bed,” he says, “But that doesn’t mean your not crazy.”

Jury Duty?

So I had to attend Jury Duty yesterday and was actually picked to serve. So if I am a little out of pocket this week, you all know why. This particular trial is scheduled to last all week long, yeah for me.

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Edited to add:
He plead guilty, wasted a day for me, earned me $46 and a Jury Duty "war story".
I am back at work and back to postin'-just have to be motivated now...

March 4, 2008

I voted today, did you?