Like SO Totally!

Yesterday I met two of my friends that I went to school with when I lived in Bucyrus. I haven't seen them since 1993-94 when my jerk ex-step-dad kicked us out unexpectedly one day and we moved back to Marion. It was such fun seeing them again and how even though our life experiences have changed the way we look a little, we were basically the same girls I remember back as Sophmores in high school.

So I had my yearbook and old pictures out and as Abby is thumbing through and sees me, she says "Um, mom, did you like mean to wear that much make-up? It doesn't look so good." Hee hee. I told her that almost all young girls wear too much make-up and think it still looks good, but that we eventually learn how to apply it properly. And she goes "yea, and your hair was SO high!" I laughed out loud, of course, because she was SO right, but then defended myself and said "THAT was how we ALL wore our hair back then! LOTS of hairspray and really high bangs." I have plenty of pictures to prove it!

I told her when we got home I'd do our hair like we did back then and she reluctantly agreed. I, for one, had a blast doing it. Although, my hair has been out of that kind of shape for so long that it took several teases and several spray, curl, blow dries to get it to stand up. Abby's, however, obeyed like good virgin hair does. I thought she was rockin' the hair, but she just thought it was too retarded for words.

I Feel Robbed

So I decided to make Broccoli Rice Casserole for Abby and I for dinner tonight. I distinctly remember buying this 160z bag of broccoli yesterday, purposefully buying a name brand (which I rarely do anymore) thinking that I'd get more broccoli heads than stems.

I break the bag open just now and take a gander inside. What do I see? Not broccoli heads, that's for sure! Nope, just a crapload of stems and pieces. WTHeck!? I paid full price for name brand to get nothing better than this?

Honestly people, there is ten ounces of stems and pieces here and maybe a cup worth of heads. Dang it! Makes me want to shove it all back in the bag and return it. This is deceitful robbery, if you ask me. I could have bought a whole fresh head of broccoli for this price! Grrr....

Guess it'll be Broccoli Stem and Rice Casserole tonight. *sigh*

A Couple Random Thoughts at 5:00 on a Saturday

1) I went out and bought hair extensions this week. Yep, I did. I thought they'd help me get through this awful hair growing out transition. And in my humble opinion, they look sweet. My hair is still too short though to pull them off, so whatever, screwed again out of a fun fashion item. I swear that's been the story of my non-fashionable life. I've always been on the tail end of every fashion, just when it got less popular and came down in price so the rest of us uncool people could buy the whatever on super sale or the knock-off style at Walmart, Ten Below or some other non-brand store. Same thing with my hair. And now that I have the money to go out and buy the latest fashion things, I'm either to old and fluffy to shop in those stores OR I'm too guilty to spend the money on the stuff.

2. I'm seriously thinking of Googling "voluntary hysterectomy" because (male readers, skip to thought #3) I am SO tired of having a period. Seriously. I started two days ago and now on my third day I am FINALLY having Flo. So okay, day three and that means I'll be riding the tide for at least another five days and then another two for it to wane off and stop. I am SO sick of it. Eighteen years of this crud, vomiting, excruciating pain, blackouts, bleedouts, many, many pain relievers, three kids and a tubal later...I'm done. Take it out. I'm tired of the PMS and twelve plus weeks a year that are stolen from me.

3) I LOVE MY KIDS. Yep, I love the little shisters so much. They are at great ages right now. Abby's gonna be eight in April and she's like having a little sister around more often than not. The NOT being when she is reverts back to be four and picking fights with her little brother or whining at us about how unfair her life is. Anyway...she's become my little running partner and has actually surprised me. I really enjoy running with her and she can keep up for the most part. We're only doing a small mile each time, but she keeps a pace and keeps my mind off of how much I'd rather be sitting on the couch getting fatter. So I've dubbed her my running partner and am seriously thinking about entering the two of us into some fun races this Spring/Summer. How friggin' fun that would be!

And Zach is pretty hilarious right now...when he's not dropping a load in his underwear, that is. Yea, he's still doing that even though we had a great success of him sitting and doing it on the potty. Stubborn little thing. Scott asked him the other day how much he loved Daddy and he quickly said "20!" Hee hee. And then this morning as I was leaving to go to work I bent down to give Daddy a kiss at the computer and Zach got in the mix of us and said "I love you so much, Mommy and Daddy." So I said "we love you too, buddy" and he says "yea, I love you guys." (insert warm fuzzy feelings here) What a kid!

Little Miss Lilly is REALLY enjoying the outdoors. When she decides it's time to go out she goes to the coat closet, grabs her aqua blue Crocs and brings them to me along with her coat all the while saying "I go owside. I go owside." This kid absolutely LOVES going down the slide too. She waddles her diaper butt right over to it, throws her chubby leg up onto the wrung and up she goes. She doesn't wait for help either. She just heaves herself down and smashes at the bottom with a laugh. Fearless, I tell ya. Oh, but don't tick her off. She has a scream that can break your eardrum.

Three kids is STILL a lot to handle, but every month it gets easier and easier on us. It's nice to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

4) I DO think that when you have a baby, each one should also come with a Dyson. I honestly am in complete shock and awe by the amount of crumbs these kids trail around the house. Crumbs and little pieces of paper and bits of stuff EV-ER-Y-WHERE! It's maddening. But I press on..Scott and I both do. We wipe, we sweep, we dust, we pick up...and ten minutes later we have to go do it in another room. And to think...one day we'll miss it all. Or so I hear.

5) Thank goodness Khloe Kardashian is on the show Keeping Up With The Kardashians. I was watching last night and the show was about how she was going to work with a PETA campaign. I'm not all supportive of getting naked for any good cause, but the that's what the deal was with her...her body image/dealing with being naked in the media. I guess she was getting comments about being a gorilla or amazon woman next to her sisters. Oh yea...well, if she's a gorilla then I'm a monkey's uncle. People please. she's just as gorgeous as her two sisters and I, for one, am glad she is the build that she is so that I (a regular sized girl) can identify with SOMEONE or SOMETHING on that show. I could totally see me being the cocky, outspoken, tough sister. You go, Khloe!

Alright...enough randomness from me. Have a great week, friends!

Coochie Cream

Let me insert a little earthly girl reality here, right on the heels of all my spirituality stuff. See...you just never know what I'm gonna say at any given time!

Do you wax *down there*? Do you do the "daily shave" or are you au natural?

I have a friend who for Valentine's Day decided to surprise her hubby with a freshly waxed Vag. Wow. Now THAT'S love! Am I right, girls? Just thinking about melted wax, muslin strips, thick coarse pubic hair and my sweet vag all in one sentence makes me want to curl into the fetal position. But she did it. My friend did it and oh boy, was her hubby EXCITED.

Okay, so I'm not real down with going to a salon and having it done, but I'm looking at myself *down there* and thinking...yea, a little vag-scaping might be in order.

I asked the gals at work awhile ago if they did regular maintenance and was SHOCKED to find that I was the only bush in the room. Apparently there is this cream out there called Coochie Cream and they use it to do their daily shave. I guess I missed that girl memo somewhere along the line.

So I figure I'll just use some Suave, a razor and trim up the kitty.

Uhhhh, hello itchy razor bumps, daily maintenance and prickley sensation while walking and bending down!! Yeee-ow!

So, after a week or two of this mild self-imposed torture I've come to the conclusion that I am neither paying a woman to painfully wax my coochie area nor painfully shaving the heck out of it. I'll just take care of the stray bikini spiders and call it a day.

To all of you fine women who are stronger and/or more capable than me in the vag-scaping, my hat is off to you. I'll be the hairy one over here. Hey, maybe I can start a new trend of vag hair maintenance...dye it a pretty shade of pink...put a bow in and voila!

Family Worship

Do you or did you worship as a family at home? We don't. I, for
one, would like to start doing something as a family. I think with the
ages of our kids though, eight, four and one and a half, it might be kinda hard
finding something that works as a group.

I was just reading the book Shepherding a Child's Heart by Ted
Tripp. Okay, okay...I've been "reading" it for like half a year now, but
it IS a good book every single time I pick it up. I just get distracted
easily. *wink* So, in this book he's talking about Family Worship and here
are his thoughts on it. I thought them interesting and wanted to share
with all my peeps who have younger kids.

The practice of family worship is a means, not an end. It is a means
to the end of knowing God. The name of the game is not daily family
worship per se; it is knowing God. The end is knowing God. A means to employ in
reaching that end is family worship.

You need family worship that connects with your children and
their lives. You must be creative and flexible in assuring that your
family worship serves the shepherding and nurturing tasks
we have outlines above.

Reading the Proverbs daily is of great benefit to children (and
adults). Our daily practice was to read one-third of a chapter of
Proverbs before school each day. This was a rich source of wisdom and
encouragement for our children. We have seen them learn and then later
internalize the principles in this practical section of the Word of
God. The Proverbs serve as an owner's manual for life. Proverbs
confronts a child with every aspect of true spirituality.

When our children were little, we would read Old Testament passages and act
them out. I have been Goliath (with help of a chair). We have hidden
in caves (under the table) with David as he ran from Saul. Reading some of
the Psalms pf persecution in that setting made them come alive for our
children. One day, we packed our things and set out on foot, talking about
Abraham who left Ur not knowing where he would go, only knowing God would go
with him. We tried to imagine walking away from our home knowing we would never come back again. We tried to imagine not knowing where we would
go.

Why do all this? For this simple reason: to make the Bible truth live
for our children. Always remember that the goal of family worship is
knowing God. When you lose sight of that goal, family worship becomes an
empty ritual. You need only read Isaiah 1 to see how God feels about empty
ritual.

What a good idea, right? I can just imagine Scott with a towel wrappedaround his head secured with a rope of some kind pretending to be from the Old Testament. Hee hee hee. I think we're gonna give it a try and it's gonna take me getting out of my comfort zone and being 100% okay with being silly and childlike. I think that's a great thing about being a parent. You get to act like a kid and live life through their eyes whenever you want to take that golden opportunity. Pretty awesome!

I Want God To Be My Rockstar

So, I've realized a few things this past week. A few things that the Holy Spirit is working on me with and are a tidbit painful. To tell you the truth, these aren't new things that I've learned; I've had to come to realize them before, but in a different way.

Most of you know that I come from a split family situation. My mom and dad were never married to each other, just two souls coming together to bring forth new life. Yay me! My dad moved out to Wyoming and started his life there with my step-mother and they had my little brother. Here I am 31 years old and I STILL struggle with the fact that I don't have my dad around. A majority of my life I've held my dad at this rockstar status, kind of untouchable, always wanting to be near him but couldn't. I often have dreams of him showing up at my door or just walking up into whatever I was doing in the dream. It always takes me by surprise and I get distinct feeling of thrill and excitement in the dream.

In late Fall/early Winter I was going through one of those "gawd, I just want my dad" spells and at the same time he was going through some rough stuff where he was. So not only was he physically unable to reach me, I think he really didn't have it emotionally to give to me over e-mail or phone. Frankly, I was spiritually dry, dry, dry at that time too and was unable to see through my own personal feelings. I did not take it to the Lord AT ALL, but rather sat and sulked and brought up every reason why I should just give up the whole relationship. Oh, I had all kinds of self-righteousness going down. Looking back on it...it's embarrassing and I hate that.

Now this isn't to say that my feelings aren't valid, I just acted out of emotions instead of rationally. Look, I miss the crap out of my dad and it will probably take a long while to work through all my "daddy issues", but I can see now that I need to just let it all go into God's hands because frankly, I'm messing it all up. I know that my dad is a regular person just like any of the rest of us. I am trying to get him out of this elevated status that my child's mind has put him in and really know that he's fighting his own battles, can't change history and probably longs to be with me just as much. I know now that I have been trying to shove the two of us into this pretty, perfect box and every time we didn't fit (which has been all my life) I'd throw a hissy fit and whine (either outloud or have an internal pity party.) "It's not fair that he's alllll the way out there and I'm here! I just want a dad to hold me! Why don't I have a dad around to call when things go wrong or I need advice? Boo-hoo-hoo"

The truth is...I do. I have a heavenly Father who is more than enough for me and can be relied on no matter what. I've had my focus on what I think I'm missing out on, instead of taking it for what it is and letting God fill in the gaps. I had to learn that with my relationship with my husband too. I was consistently flinging jealous attitude his way. If he was gone too long or spending too much time out of the house (tennis, work, etc) I'd throw a cold-shoulder his way for a day or so. I finally got some quiet words inserted directly from above that clearly said "he'll never be enough for you. You'll only find your everything in Me. I can give you everything you need and more." It didn't happen overnight, but I did let go of those jealous feelings and came to fully trust my husband. He had earned it afterall, but my history with men had told me that they eventually leave or do something hurtful to me, so be sure to keep a guard up. The Lord took that wall down for me, filled in those gaps and glory be to Him b/c my marriage is stronger than ever right now.

So what I'm getting from all directions right now (Scriptures, talking with wiser older women and that quiet voice inside) is that I need to look to God as my Rockstar and let my Dad be a dad. Our relationship may never fit into a pretty box. We may never live any closer than 1400 miles. I may have to be content with a purely phone relationship and any possible visits we may get in over the years. But most importantly, I need to lay all these issues I have DOWN, back the heck away and let God work it to fit whatever shape he wants it to be.

In the meantime I will have to wait and see if my stubbornness has closed the door for good.

What's Going On

Scott has been working and healing all Winter. He sprained his ankle on the tennis court in November and hasn't seen any good tennis action since. He's been in physical therapy three days a week and recently got the okay to mildly jog and has gone down to PT two days a week. Overall I think it's healing well albeit very slow. He's also healing from some wild stomach virus/our bad eating habits coming to head. Honest to goodness, we still eat pizza (frozen usually) once a week and we've been eating out a bit more lately due to birthdays, convenience and/or laziness. Anyway, for the past four or so days he'd been complaining that his stomach was queasy and he couldn't eat. We chalked it up to too much junk food, but then Sunday night/Monday morning he woke me up making this godforsaken sound clear from the downstairs bathroom. Oh, and let's not forget the foulness he had to burp for 24 hours. My gawd, it was like a tiny corpse was rotting in his stomach!

Now, let's pause and really get the effect here. My husband hasn't puked since he was in high school and was very proud of this fact. Whenever he'd get a bellyache he'd declare it, but then quickly add that he would not puke since he'd not puked since high school. So about 2am on Monday morning I'm in the inky black abyss of lovely sleep and suddenly I jerk awake to this noise that sounded like a goose being acutely choked. And I'm telling you...it.was.loud. God love Scott. He was downstairs trying to just get himself to puke but apparently his body has been SO out of practice he couldn't even gag himself into vomiting. Did you hear that he had not puked since high school? *tongue in cheek*

So I jump out of bed and run downstairs to make sure that, in fact, a goose was not being choked inside my house, to find my poor husband vomiting his toenails up into the bathroom trashcan. I felt so horrible for him and that I couldn't do anything to help. And you know the last thing you want when you are like that is to have company. I did try to help and keep him company but for the sake of his dignity I went back to bed and I think he made it back upstairs about 5am. The morning light brought a mildly better day for him healthwise but I still don't think he's 100% yet. He lost five friggin pounds just over night.

As far as I go, I think I'm hanging right in there. This Winter is starting to take it's toll on me. I'm so over being stuffed inside the house, not being able to take a nice long walk. I'm ready to play out front and sit on the back deck. Eh, but what's the use complaining? Everyone else feels the same way and we got another two months at least. I'll just be dreaming of warmer, poolside days of Summer!

Spiritually I feel like I'm waking up again. I joined a women's Small Group at church and these ladies are really, really neat. They are all older than me, except for my friend Karynda, who is younger than me. These ladies are all more consistent and wise in their own ways and experiences, so they are just what I need in my life right now.

Scott and I are doing well in the ol' marriage department. We've never really had too much issue between us anyway, but since he's been home more (due to not being able to play tennis) I feel like we're a tighter family. I'm still thinking about what we possibly could do for our ten year anniversary this Summer. A long beach vacation looks to be out of reach for us, but something more local might be cool too.

Life seems to have come to a place where we're good. We are surviving the economic downturn - thanks be to God. My kids are all healthy (aside from the yucky viral bugs that keep creeping in on them) and happy. In fact, this post has gone on waaaay too long. So I'll update on the kids tomorrow!