Daddy’s Home!

The very favorite day of our week is Friday, because that is Beloved’s day off. I plan our school week and all my other work around Friday so that we can just revel in uninterrupted time with Daddy. It starts with the kids piling into bed with us as soon as they wake up, until someone starts crying from an elbow in the nose. We almost always do a big breakfast together and then do the minimum for schoolwork.

And then we play. We go to the zoo or go bowling. We hit baseballs and tromp through the park. We eat Taco Bell for lunch and Daddy doesn’t answer his phone. We cook together and take naps. We spend the entire day reveling in each other’s company and laughing.

We love Fridays. Daddy’s home!

 

Brain Grooves

You know the old saying about twenty one days to make a new habit, right? And I’m sure we all have habits that we have had for years – either good or bad. I’ve struggled with twisting my hair since I was a little girl, and have bitten my nails on and off. My daughter Princepesa rubs a tiny mole on my forearm for comfort or affection and has since before she could even crawl.

These things wear a groove into our brain and become easy, comfortable patterns to just continue.

I can’t help but wonder sometimes what kinds of brain grooves I have which are intangible. Behaviors such as hoarding stuff because I grew up poor and struggle to this day with “I might not be able to get this again so I’d better hold onto it.” Subconscious self-speak like telling myself “I’m not a very nurturing mother.”

I recognize that I have positive brain grooves to balance the negatives, such as an abiding faith. My life story has given me story after story of God’s provision and providence, and I have the gift of faith because of this. My Beloved calls me a pessimistic optimist because I often say, “I can’t imagine how this will work out, but I believe it will.”

Which brings me back around to making new habits. I’ve been thinking more about what kind of brain grooves I want to have. Being more conscious about giving away things I don’t need rather than stockpiling. Recognizing that no mother is SuperMom and we all just do our best and pray for our children. And thinking about what positive grooves I want to add to my life. My most important goal right now is to weave God’s word into the fabric of my life. Studying God’s word needs to be a groove that runs across everything else and I’m working on making it deeper and wider.

 

Solitaire Scores

I am not a competitive person. My Beloved doesn’t even like to play on my team when we do team board games like Trivial Pursuit or Password, because I frequently give clues to the opposing team. This drives him bonkers because it’s totally outside of his little world view where you.must.win.

That said, I have discovered one tiny streak of competitiveness in me. It’s over solitaire scores, so it’s just against myself (or my laptop, depending on how you want to look at it). I have Windows Vista and the solitaire game that came preinstalled has very pretty cards, so I have played it more on this computer than any other that I’ve had. (Call me shallow, but I’m a visual person and the aesthetic appeals to me.)

Anyway, my win/loss record and percentage appears after each game. To date I have played 281 games and won 98, for a win percentage of 34%. Don’t choke – this is over months of a few games here and there.

It’s not until recently that I have paid attention to my win percentage and been trying to bump it up higher. In the past I’d turn off the scorekeeper and restart a game anytime I got stuck, but now I’m watching that percentage! I just can’t get the percentage over 35%. I even wondered out loud one evening if the game was adaptive and getting harder the longer I played, to which my Beloved snorted and replied that I’d watched too many Stargate episodes.

So I guess I do have a corner of my mind that is competitive. It’s funny to learn things about yourself that you didn’t expect to find. And now, I’m off to play solitaire. I think if I win just a few more games in a row I might bump my win percentage up another point.

 

My thoughts on the day

1. I didn’t vote for him, but that doesn’t mean we don’t owe him respect as our elected leader (Romans 13:1-2).
2. Hoping for the newly elected President to fail does not demonstrate the abundant grace that God has extended to us all and asks us to share with each other. As my Beloved regularly reminds us, it’s not grace if you deserve it.
3. God is sovereign (Job 38). God sometimes allows us the blessing of participating in his plans, but he doesn’t need us to accomplish them. In times like this we need to recognize that the inverse is also true: God can use anyone to accomplish anything he wants to do (Proverbs 21:1).
4. Prayer is still our most important tool. We should pray for our new president (1 Timothy 2:1-4 ), that God would help us to be an effective witness (Colossians 4:3-4), and above all, that God would be glorified.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

 

You know you are a pastor’s wife when…

You know you are a pastor’s wife when, before being seated in a restaurant, you scan all the other tables to see if there are any members of your congregation that you should go greet.

 

That I May Serve With A Willing Heart

God, our Father,
You redeemed us
and made us Your children in Christ.
Through Him You have saved us from death
and given us Your Divine life of grace.
By becoming more like Jesus on earth,
may I come to share His glory in Heaven.
Give me the peace of Your kingdom,
which this world does not give.
By Your loving care protect the good You have given me.
Open my eyes to the wonders of Your Love
that I may serve You with a willing heart.

Amen.

 

Words Can’t Describe

I splurged on an Upper Case Living decal for my front door a few weeks ago. I hadn’t put it up yet, so decided this afternoon was the time.

I was excited about it.

I thought about what people might think when they came up to our front door and we welcomed them into our home.

I read the instructions several times. I even got out a tape measure and measured it. This from the woman who just eyeballs everything, much to my Beloved’s chagrin. I carefully cut it in half so part would be on each door. I followed the instructions to a “t”.

Guess what I didn’t do?

I didn’t put the two halves on the correct door. I reversed them.

Words can’t describe how disappointed I am right now. Phooo.

My daughter saw how disappointed I was and reminded me that everyone makes mistakes sometimes. She’s right.

 

100 Things

This being my official one-hundredth post, I am doing a twist on the blogging tradition of telling you 100 things about me. I just don’t think there are really 100 interesting things about me and I’m too busy/lazy to rack my brains and come up with 100 things that I’m willing to confess to the world in general.

Instead I’m taking a shortcut and lifting an idea from One Thing (great blog, by the way). I figure this tells you almost 100 things about me, but requires little thought. Good deal.

So I have bold faced the things I have done and left the rest normal.

1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band (I’m counting fourth grade flute concert as a yes.)

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity (not sure this is a valid question, considering It’s All God’s, but anyway…)

7. Been to Disneyland/world

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning (Not the sickest I’ve ever been though. That honor goes to my entire pregnancy with Princepesa. I shudder to think of it even still.)

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill (Ahem. I know, just being real here. Call it a Mental Health Day.)

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a marathon

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse (Feb 1979 in Idaho; age 6 – scared the chicken livers out of me)

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run (snort. as if.)

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Taught yourself a new language

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

41. Sung karaoke (Another snort. I can’t even sing and clap at the same time, so as un-shy as I am, no way I’m doing this.)

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (I looked up from the bottom; couldn’t bring myself to pay the cost to go up. Wish I had now.)

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theater

55. Been in a movie

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching

63. Gotten flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets, or plasma (Beloved did this several times in college for grocery money. I couldn’t because I didn’t weigh enough. Good grief.)

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check (Another ahem. We had some really poor student days. See #64)

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone (pinky toe – not a big cast, but it sure did hurt)

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper

85. Read the entire Bible

86. Visited the White House

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (Yoiks. Not a farm girl here.)

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life

90. Sat on a jury (Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever even been called for jury duty.)

91. Met someone famous (I once saw Robin Williams in an airport wearing sweats. Does that count?)

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

97. Been involved in a lawsuit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

So there you go. If you made it to the bottom of this ridiculous list, you know 99 things I have or have not done. Don’t you feel like you know me better?

 

A Kid’s Eye View of the World

I plugged in my camera to download some pictures yesterday and made a discovery.

Apparently Princepesa spent some time hauling my camera around and snapping pics.  I flicker of annoyance crossed my mind, but then I enjoyed looking at everything she took pictures of. It looks like she just wandered around and took pictures of anything that caught her eye. It’s a little view of her world.

I hope it always stays this easy to see inside her world.

 

Shopping the House

Maybe other people have used this phrase, but Nester is the first place I heard it. Since I’m doing a spending fast, I have been shopping the house to finish some decorating and nesting, and I have made some really fun discoveries! I guess that’s the upside to having a lot of things in storage for five years – it’s like Christmas opening boxes again.

My favorite discovery so far? These two Indian pillow covers. They are going to look fabulous on my couch. The problem? I don’t have any pillow forms that fit them. And I can’t buy any. Doh!