Just wanted to let you know I’m down with a SERIOUS case of the Flu. I’d appreciate prayers for healing. As usual, Benny is handling everything and being the awesome husband that he is. We canceled our Thanksgiving plans and I’m not sure when I’ll be up and around. I’ll be back to blogging sometime next week.
Until then, don’t forget about the blanket drive my friend Jan is hosting for SEVENS at her blog.
I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving with your families! 😉
Posted in Random | 3 Comments »
As I struggle to free myself from the entangled mess my blankets have become, it dawns on me how much I toss and turn when I don’t feel good. At what point during the night had my unsettled stomach turned into a churning flask of yuckiness? Will I make it to the bathroom in time? Do I care if I don’t? Do I care about anything other than the pounding between my ears and the achiness that holds my body captive? Deep breath…o.k., not too deep…you can make it.
3 Saltine crackers and 6 oz. of Sprite later, I’m sure I’m going to die. Feeling this bad is not normal. I hear the faint sounds of my children playing on the other end of the house as everything becomes hazy and I drift back into a sleep so deep no prince’s kiss could wake me. The next thing I know, my prince is nudging me awake telling me I need to drink something. I look at the clock. 4 p.m. I’ve just slept the entire afternoon away after sleeping all morning. What-am I going for a record? I try to sit up and find that I don’t have the energy to do even that by myself. I’m feeling 100 years old, weak, and frail. Neither of those words could be used to describe me on any other day.
So what can I do from the sitting position of my bed? Check my email? Read? Nope. I can’t focus and the words on the page are fuzzy. Watch a movie? I can try, but I know I’m about to fall asleep again. I’m fighting it -knowing I’ll want to sleep tonight. Oh what’s the use? I drift off again. The movie was dumb anyway.
I sleep through the night, only waking long enough to change positions and relieve my aching body. I’m hot. Now I’m cold. And I’m hot again. What’s that old saying? Feed a fever, starve a cold? Or was it the other way around? I’m hungry but the thought of food makes me queasy. Queasy…what a funny word.
I’m missing a birthday party and band practice today. All I can think about is snuggling down in my blankets and ignoring the world. A little chicken soup and more Sprite and I’m ready to once again sleep the afternoon away. I’m thanking God for my prince keeping things under control while I rest.
Posted in Random | 4 Comments »
I have quite an extensive collection of quotes by various famous people, my favorite authors, and my quirky friends. When I was in college, it was “the thing to do” to hang quotes on your dorm room door. Even then I was surrounded by friends who loved the written word as much as I did. I decided to share a few of my favorite quotes of late. Enjoy!
“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins – not by strength but by perseverance.” ~H. Jackson Brown
“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” ~Ronald E. Osborn
“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” ~Berthold Auerbach
“Reading furnishes the mind only with material for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” ~John Locke
“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” ~J.K. Rowling
“If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; But if you really make them think, they’ll hate you. ~Don Marquis
“But to become a freak one needs a strong character and unusual determination.” ~George Burchett, Memoirs of a Tattooist.
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” ~Elbert Hubbard
Posted in Creativity, Humor, Random | 3 Comments »
I received a blogger award today from my friend Tonya. The category was for Social Conscience. Thank you Tonya for thinking of me and honoring me in this way. Now I’m supposed to pass it on…
This award focuses on the following:
-Creativity
-Spirit of Giving
-For Keeping It Real
-For Social Conscience
-For Staying True to Their Beliefs
Since Tonya already awarded some of my closest friends in Denver, I’ve decided to look outside my local circle and award some of my far-away (only in miles) friends.
For Creativity I choose Tawnya Marie, my closest friend and the most creative and artistic person I know. Everything she touches glows with life and promise. She makes the world a brighter and more colorful place to live. She calls forth the creator within me and I love her for it.
For The Spirit of Giving, I choose Jetty Betty. She’s been giving me encouragement and love almost since Day 1 of my blogging life. She is genuine, loving, and such a great example to me and many others. I don’t get over to her blog nearly enough, and I can’t wait to see her again.
For Keeping it Real, I choose Claudia Mair Burney. The woman has an amazing way with words and she isn’t all rosy and fru-fru when there are tears in her eyes and heart. She’s funny and honest and lays it all out there for the world to see – not just the good, but the bad and the ugly as well. She’s the only sassy lady on this list that I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet.
For Social Conscience, I choose Heather Meyer, my red-headed step-child friend. We’ve discussed the possibilities of our being separated at birth and despite the fact that we are both red-headed and step-children, it’s truly impossible seeing that I’m older by years and not minutes. But our lives have run very similar courses including what we do for a living and how we choose to focus on the marginalized in society. She is way more official than I am, and she’s got a lot more knowledge as well. Kudos to you girl! You Rock!
For Staying True to Their Beliefs, I choose Jennifer King, my enemy turned soul mate/heart friend. She loves the Lord unapologetically and stands firm even when facing much opposition from the enemy. She also responds in love (but with conviction) to believers who take a different view on issues (they are not the enemy). She knows what she believes and why – How can I not respect and applaud that?
Thanks Ladies for being such an inspiration to me! There you go, a Kansan, a Texan, a Michiganian, a Coloradan, and a Canadian. I think I may have made one of those words up. Anywhooo…I’m spreading the bloggin’ love around! lol 🙂
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My friend Zack showed me this video today. He was looking at it in the context of the health-care system here in America, which fits and is a good discussion for another day. But my first thought was that it was a good visual example of who we are and need to be as parents, friends, and a community of believers. The video is of a group of water buffalo who engage in a battle with lions and a crocodile to rescue a young waterbuffalo that has become prey. It is titled “Battle at Kruger”.
What a picture of life. There are lessons we can learn from this video. For example, we don’t have to go looking for trouble, it can easily find us on it’s own. I also thought how well this illustrated Bible passages like 1 Peter 5:8 which says, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”
Thinking about how this applies to my family and my life, I have a picture of all of the things out there that are a threat to my children. I have gone through periods of life where the threat wasn’t real even though I perceived it as such (imagine cardboard lions instead of the real ones), and I’ve lived the opposite where the threat didn’t seem as great as it actually was. In those situations, underestimation can kill you. There have also been times that I walked into threatening situations with my kids in tow, maybe not realizing the dangers that awaited me (not only were there lions, but a hungry croc as well). So what’s an anxious momma waterbuffalo to do? She went and got back-up. Along comes the whole herd to help her rescue her baby. “It takes a village” and “Safety in numbers” worked in her favor this time and the result was one hurt but alive baby and lions being tossed in the air and chased off by the mob. Calling in reinforcements saved that baby buffalo’s life – as far as we know.
It’s a good plan. It’s what I feel some of my friends were trying to do for me when they sent the warning email about The Golden Compass movie. (I received another email about it today.) What I hope I conveyed with my post on that subject is that sometimes the mob mentality backfires and causes more damage than needed. Sometimes the mob thinks it is protecting the young and attacking the enemy when in actuality there might not be a real threat. But what if there is – like in this video? Shouldn’t we be ready for it and willing to fight it? But what if what I perceive as a threat, you find harmless? What then?
We have a responsibility to protect our children. We are the filters for what they watch and learn while they’re young. It is through our guidance and direction that they learn what is appropriate and acceptable and what is not. We raise our children reflecting our own values and morals. And there in lies the problem. While there is certainly a standard moral code (ie. don’t bring harm to others), beyond that morals and values vary from family to family. For example, our family highly values stories about superheroes, our kids all have their own capes and I don’t limit where they can wear them – other than while they’re in bed for safety reasons. We talk about what makes the characters super, their powers and their frailties, and how they deal with both. We even have a superhero family name – The Fantastic Five. We loved watching “Who Wants To Be A Superhero?” on T.V. Then there is my friend *Kathy. That’s not her real name – I’m covering my butt. Her family does not watch superhero shows, she doesn’t like superhero costumes, she thinks that kids can pick up some pretty bad habits from watching superhero stuff, and basically finds all of the hoopla annoying. They are a wonderful Christian family without the superhero influence. We are Christian family with it. Is either of us “wrong”? I don’t think so. It’s a matter of us both training up our kids the best way we know how with our own values in mind. Which brings me to my next point…
Though our love for all things superhero runs deep, there are things in that genre that are not appropriate for our kids at their current ages. We don’t let them have access to certain superhero movies and shows, and won’t until we think they can handle it mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Kids can’t handle the same things adults can. You’ve heard me rant on this topic before when I witnessed frightened children with their careless parents at the theater watching PG-13 and R-rated movies.
Marketing companies hack me off by spending millions of dollars selling teen or adult movie merchandise to small children. It makes me a bit crazy. We drew the line with the superhero movies like Superman Returns, the Spiderman trilogy, Elektra, X-men, etc. Those movies are not intended for a young audience, but were entertaining for older teens and adults. All of the buzz surrounding The Golden Compass may be a case of just that. From where I’m at in the book, I would not read it to my children until they’re older. At 8, 5, and 3 they aren’t ready for the mature situations I’m reading about. I understand the caution being taken by concerned parents. I may have friends that choose differently than I do. I’ll still love them and be their friend if they do.
So back to the video…I thought that baby was done for. When I saw the herd of buffalo arrive for the showdown, I thought at the very least they would run again and at the most they would recover a dead calf. The lady on the video kept saying, “They’re too late, they’re too late”. It was amazing to see the calf stand up and try to get away – which it did. We can be like that herd of buffalo and come to the aid of our fellow buffalo. It’s necessary to know what the danger is ahead of time and have a plan. They ran the lions off one at a time – not as a group. There was no need to run the crocodile off because he wasn’t a real threat. We need to know who we’re fighting and what we’re fighting for.
We need to take responsibility for our kids and be proactive not by boycotting, but by talking it out and walking our walk and setting the example yet letting others have the freedom to choose their own actions. We need to know when to call for reinforcements and when to avoid the watering hole all together. We also need to rally with the herd to rescue the kiddos in our community when they’re in danger. That could be the start of another post about our ministry…;)
Posted in Family | 1 Comment »
