Sometimes I Write

My bestfriend from college started a blog today…my influence is slowly spreading muahahahaha! Just kidding. She’s AWESOME! You have to visit her blog and say hello – and tell her I sent you. Her name is Tawnya and I’ve blogged about her before. She is one of the most amazing women in my life and she’s one of my oldest friends – as in longest friendships – since we were 17. I love her dearly! So go say hello to her at
www.rants-raves-and-ramblings.blogspot.com.

Now for THIS blog. Here’s an old memory for you. It was one of the many things floating around in my head last week. I’m not sure why I want to share it other than to get it out of my head for now. Warning: I used the word “suck” alot when I was a teenager.

6:30 a.m. and I have exactly twenty minutes to get my lazy butt out the door to catch the bus for school. I hate mornings. It isn’t even light out yet. Why should I have to get up before the sun even wants to shine? The people who invented school hours were idiots. My hair is still wet but I don’t want the frizzies all day so I guess I’ll deal with it. I can’t find my favorite make-up and there’s NO WAY I’m going to school without it. What if Brian sees me and thinks I look plain and ordinary? Not much chance of the “ordinary” with all of this wild hair. Who am I kidding? I could have purple hair and I don’t think he’d notice. 14 minutes to go. I’m sooo going to be late. Atleast I can wear my favorite sweater today-pink cable knit pullover. It’s like the one piece of clothing I own that everyone else wears too. I really wish I didn’t care about what everyone else thinks. 6th grade sucks. Atleast I can spend an hour staring at Brian during English class. Oh God, please don’t let him be in Health class when we discuss periods and condoms and stuff. I’ll just die! I can’t believe they made us watch that filmstrip last week. Eeeww! 7 minutes…Is Lennie even up yet? I don’t hear him in his room. HE better not make me late. I used to run down the steps of our apartment building by two’s, but since Mom’s fall I’m afraid to. The bar next door is dark and empty with frost all over the windows. It sure was hopping lastnight. I could hear the music pumping away well after I went to bed. Oh my gosh it’s cold out here! My hair is already starting to freeze into curl-sicles. Please Joe! Don’t be late. I see the bus coming through my freezing breath floating in the air. Joe pulls up and opens the door. He hardly looks at me as I take a seat close to the front. I always try to sit close to the front so I can hear the radio. I’m convinced Joe doesn’t listen to anything but Def Leppard, but I like it. And I like Joe. He’s kind of cute for an older guy. What is he 22 or something? He always looks like he just rolled out of bed, but he still looks good. How does he do that? He looks like a rocker with his long hair and ripped jeans. I thought school bus drivers were supposed to be old men and women in polyester wearing ball caps. Joe doesn’t fit in with that crowd I’m sure. Maybe that’s why I like him. I don’t think I fit in either. Def Leppard…Who wouldn’t love a band with a one-armed drummer that rocks? I’m saving up my money so I can buy their new album -Pyromania. I think I know most of the words already thanks to Joe and these oh so fun bus rides. As much as I like Brian, he listens to crappy music. Motley Crew and Iron Maiden suck! I like looking at the fields as we drive by and trying to predict who will get on the bus today and who won’t. I can’t wait to get my license. Five more years. Until then, it’s the bus for me. Oh man! We’re here and my song’s not over yet. Now I’m going to have it in my head all day. That’s my life. Music and boys. Well…one boy…

Yes, this was an actual day of my life. Well, about 2 hours of a morning really. And just so you know…It’s the year 2007 and Def Leppard is STILL touring the world…but I haven’t listened to them since 1985.

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I got your hopes up and then didn’t post all week. It wasn’t on purpose – I promise. Benny decided to work from home a lot this week and I had to SHARE the internet (I’m a Nowell and Nowell’s share) which really meant I had to let him use it most of the time and just check my email now and then. I’m behind on that too. It reminds me of a button I once read. It said, “The faster I go, the behinder I get”. Yeah, it’s been one of those weeks. Not bad, just VERY busy. We also started a new schedule this week and a new diet last week. No groans from me this time – I’ve already lost six pounds. Ofcourse it’s probably because I’m actually drinking water. I don’t like water and don’t drink much of it, but I’ve been drinking about 2 liters a day this week. That along with the new diet, so far so good. I don’t expect it to remain this easy. Especially when I add Cardio to the mix.

Tomorrow is Sunday, my favorite day of the week. That always makes me smile. We’re supposed to get more snow – we’ll see if it actually happens. Either way, I’m looking forward to a day of rest. However you spend your Sunday afternoons, I hope you’re blessed. I also hope to get all of those posts out of my head and posted here so I can share my ramblings and musings with you. Until then, Peace to you and yours!

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This picture makes you want to come and see me in Colorado, doesn’t it? 😉 That my friends, is the Broadmoor Hotel and Resort. Here’s what their website says:

Located just minutes from downtown Colorado Springs, The BROADMOOR is the pinnacle of meeting locations in North America. It has 700 rooms and suites, 185,000 square feet of flexible event space, 15 restaurants, cafes and lounges, three golf courses, a tennis club, and world-class spa. These lush 3,000 acres are easily accessible…

Paula, Carmen and I had a wonderful time there last weekend at the Whole Hearted Mother Conference. It all began when we pulled into the circular drive and the Valet attendant unloaded our luggage for us and drove off in the cold with my minivan. No walking through the snow for us! YEAH! We checked in and were escorted to our room and encountered the first of our fumblings on tipping at a 5 star hotel. yikes. You would have laughed at the looks on our faces as we tried to discuss what was an appropriate tip while the bell hop was in the hallway in between trips into our room to unload all of our stuff. I thought it was $2.00 per bag, or is that just the tip for skycabs at DIA? Was $1.00 per bag enough? Somebody please educate me on this ritzy etiquette! Anyway, we gave him $10.00 not knowing if we were too generous or if we stiffed him. Like I ever thought I’d be stressing over something like that!

The conference was amazing and I came away from it a bit refreshed and renewed in my walk as a mother and as a homeschooler. I also made a new friend. You can’t possibly be surprised by that. Carmen’s friend Julie met us there, and she was so sweet and funny. At the very end of the conference she asked to see a picture of my family and this look of confusion and surprise came over her face. She said we had met before because she recognized Benny. After two minutes of guessing we realized it was Halloween night at the Chik-fil-a near my house. Our kids were all in costume and we went out for dinner there. She was there with her family and remembered that Petey ran into the girl’s bathroom. As we headed that way to retrieve him, they told me which way he went and laughed at the situation. Benny had chatted with them a minute or two before we left and that was that. Three months later I meet Julie again at the conference and she encourages my socks off. God is so good.

A woman in my homeschooling group at FACE where we attend Friday school classes, and where she teaches, could really use our prayers. She is the loving mother of five children. In April, there were permanent court orders regarding a legal separation between her and her husband. In May, the husband filed motions to change many of those orders. New orders gave him sole decision-making authority over the 5 children. Parenting time was also changed to one week with each parent. The orders were pretty stunning, and there has been quite a bit of sadness and grieving. It seems the magistrate may have a bias against homeschooling as he ruled on education authority yet education authority wasn’t the subject of any of the motions. The woman made another motion to modify parenting time and educational decision making authority. That motion is up for hearing in an initial status conference on January 17 at 8:30 in the morning. Please pray for this family for a positive outcome for the kids. They are all so sweet and really struggling through this awful time in their lives. Thank you!

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I’m off to the Wholehearted Mothers Conference tomorrow with my friends Paula and Carmen. It’s being held at the Broadmoor Hotel and Resort in Colorado Springs. The place is GORGEOUS (and way too expensive)! The conference is for mothers and homeschoolers, and I am so excited to be going. We’re going to have workshops and guest speakers, good food, and lots of books…I’m close to crying just thinking about it. Please pray the weather will cooperate. Evidently God decided Colorado needed a change and He gave us Winter – finally. We have had some major snow every weekend for the last three weeks. I know it’s supposed to be white here in January, but come on!

I have about ten posts juggling around in my brain, so be ready for some heavy blogging next week. Seriously.

I hope you all have a great weekend and I’ll see you back here on Monday!

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Nothing new, but hopefully improved…or atleast published more frequently. It’s been a busy two weeks. Here is a quick rundown of the events that have kept me from blogging:

Angi was here until yesterday. Pete had a birthday. We’ve had 3 snowstorms – with another on the way in a few days. We spent New Years Eve with the Captivating Women and their families, then came home to ring in the new year with Angi who had stayed home because she wasn’t feeling well. All three Nowell kids stayed awake to see the ball drop on t.v. – much to my amazement. I had a tooth pulled and spent a few days on Vicodin, not in a loopy, “don’t have a care in the world” sort of daze, but a “crap! My mouth hurts! When can I take some more drugs?” sort of way. We went to Colorado Springs to see some our youth ministry friends – Chris, Alan, Jared, Brooke, Trevor, and Brittany, who were all attending the National Conference on Youth Ministries. The Hartnagle’s were here for a visit lastnight. And that brings us to today.

Our day began with a visit to Dr. Zack’s office for our weekly adjustments. My jaw was out of alignment – no big surprise there – my dentist is a strapping young man with big biceps. He was nice, but pulling teeth out of this jaw takes some serious force. It’s laundry catch up day. Max is working on his reading lesson while the other two kiddos nap. Benny is working, and I am stealing some precious moments of silence to get back into my blogging groove.

I’ve gotten grief from some of you for staying away so long. And a few of you have been teasing me about what I blog about here. I talked to Billy while I still had a mouth full of gauze and told him about the whole tooth pulling experience. His response? “So are you going to blog about it?” Nice. What a friend – teasing me in my time of pain. 😉 It’s nice to know I’ve been missed. It will take me a few days to catch up on my reading of your blogs, so bear with me.

I met another blogging friend a few weeks ago. Heather Diane Tipton is a friend I met through Paula’s blog. She just moved to Denver from San Antonio, so lucky me! I was also surprised to hear from an old friend from college. Destany and her family live here in Denver and I didn’t know it. New friendships for the new year…God’s blessings never end!

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