Rachel Callahan

Wife of a Preacher Man.

February 6, 2012February 6, 2012 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Thoughts about Faith

“They want you to do…what??”

So my husband preached yesterday.

As in, wore a suit and a tie and a Britney mic and stood behind the pulpit in the bright lights and preached.

The evidence that this event occurred can be found in the gigantic My-Husband-Is-Preaching Stress Pimple right between my eyes.

Because apparently, everyone that knew he was preaching was praying that he wouldn’t be anxious, and as all of Chris’ nervousness made it’s defeated retreat out of his body, it crawled into the nearest one that happened to be hanging around – and that would be mine.

The good news was that it was a very serious communion service, so I didn’t have to worry about him making any unscheduled, un-preapproved jokes.

(Chris teaches our Sunday School on occasion, and being that it is full of our closest friends, he tends to freewheel with a demographically casual irreverence that would stop my heart if it came from my husband in the pulpit in Big Church.)

But, the bad news was also that it was a very serious communion service, and he jolly well better not mess it up.

So, alas. The nervousness on his behalf manifested itself into Crisco and grew a new being between my eyes.

I had read and reread and edited and reedited his message, but the pit of my stomach didn’t get that Hopping Bunny Feeling until 10 PM Saturday night, at which time he began his first pajama rehearsal from the kitchen counter.

After some high-quality, well-received constructive criticism from his life partner, it wasn’t bad at all.

And then there was an interlude of a couple of old episodes of Downton Abbey, at which time I tried to distract my Crisco Bunnies by wondering what it would be like to have a Lady-In-Waiting and listening to fabulous British accents.

And then the second pajama rehearsal at midnight. My anxiety increased and I wondered if perhaps it was too late for him to back out.

You know – for my sake.

It wasn’t him – the message was beautiful, and he was doing it fine, but I just couldn’t help but get that piano-recital, Olympic final, ice-the-kicker nervousness on his behalf.

On Sunday morning, I felt a bit of Wife Guilt over not ironing his pants, chose my most proper front-row-sitting outfit, and began praying that Noah would take the day as an opportunity to begin to at least marginally enjoy his stay in the nursery.

We finished getting ready in silence. Except for…

“I sure hope that you give me something to blog about.”

“I sure hope I don’t!!”

And thankfully, Chris got his wish. He didn’t trip on the stairs, I didn’t get an inescapable coughing fit, Noah didn’t crawl out of the nursery and into the balcony and wail about the injustice of his life, and no unvetted jokes slipped out. The entire service was very meaningful, and I was (after my heart resumed it’s thumping) quite proud of him.

Now if I could just get rid of this zit.

Although the first few minutes of his message mysteriously disappeared, if you have any desire to hear an excerpt, it can be found here.

But if you hear a tapping noise, that was most likely my nervous foot reverberating from the front row.

{Insert Interesting Blog Post Here}

February 3, 2012February 2, 2012 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Just My Luck

This week has not left a lot of room for bloggability.

Mainly, because there’s been a lot of this…

Which has decreased the amount of this…

And, more importantly, this…

And has also sharply increased the amount of this.

I’m also afraid that the snot sucker might have withdrawn a bit of brains as well, as he has repeatedly and angrily insisted on drinking out of this.

(Yes, these photos made me realize that I have not changed my child out of pajamas in about 96 hours.)

(Thank goodness that these photos also prove that I did at least change his jammies.)

SO. Since blogging (or thinking) hasn’t exactly been an opportunity I’ve had this week, I thought I would share some highs and lows and call it a day.

High Point:

Hearing a clank-a-roll-a-clank-a-roll-clank-a-roll, looking out the window, and seeing our mentally and physically unstable mailbox rolling down the street.

Then watching our Postlady, (who was apparently the accidental nudger of the ready-to-jump mailbox,) leap out of her mail truck, run down the street, scoop up our mailbox like it was a tender baby, and slam it back into place.

And that, my friends, is why the cost of postage keeps going up.

Low Point:

Getting a flat tire on a torrentially rainy day, then learning that if I wuss out about changing said tire in the rain and decide instead to drive, even at 5 miles per hour, down the road to Express Oil Change to get it patched, I will ruin said tire altogether.

High Point:

Being able to justify my tire-ruining trip by finding out that my spare tire lowerer was missing, so the Express Oil Change men had to use vise grips to remove it – something I would have definitively not been able to do by myself.

Low Point:

You haven’t lived until you’ve spent an hour in a 12 foot x 6 foot Express Oil Change lobby holding a wiggly, sick, sleepy, wanting-down-on-the-nasty-floor one-year-old, trying to entertain a bored and loud five-year-old, and attempting to keep from further irritating a curmudgeony twenty-something-year-old businessman who has a clear disdain for wiggly one-year-olds and bored five-year-olds.

Halfway through this experience, Ali had a philosophical moment and mused out loud, “I wonder what it feels like to have two kids?”

“Now may not be the best time to ask me that, honey.”

High Point:

Finding out that despite the fact that my Sam’s paperwork clearly states that road hazard damage is excluded, it mysteriously isn’t really, therefore saving me $150.

Low Point:

Having to drive back to the Doorway of Hell that is Express Oil Change (with a fussy, sick, sleepy baby in tow) to retrieve my slashed tire in order to receive my warranty credit. And then drive back to Sam’s and wait uncountable hours for the replacement to be installed with a fussy, sick, sleepy, hungry baby in tow.

(And possibly spending all of my warranty savings on food, because I was also quite hungry, and being marooned in Sam’s when you’re hungry is more dangerous than Richard Simmons finding a store called Sweatbands ‘R Us.)

High Point:

There’s something really disgustingly satisfying about the unbelievable amount of snot that can be retracted from a baby’s nose.

Low Point:

Babies don’t find it nearly as satisfying.

High Point:

Downloading the Google Earth iPad app and getting totally lost in fascination of satellite images of Saudi Arabia.

(Random Bonus Fact: There is no place in the world that piques my curiosity more than Saudi Arabia. Not that I’ll be visiting anytime soon – black is not my color.)

Low Point:

Having to stop looking at Google Earth to, you know, tend to my sick kids and stuff.

High Point:

Having a dream that Adam Levine from Maroon 5 had a huge crush on me and begged me to date him.

(Apparently, I’m a total egomaniac in my sleep.)

For the record, I turned him down, explaining that I was incandescently happy with my husband.

(Apparently, I like using big words in my sleep.)

Low Point:

Realizing that was just a dream and I may not be so awesome after all.

High Point:

Having a romantic, delicious, cozy, after-children’s-bedtime dinner with my husband.

Of Sloppy Joes.

(Sleeping sick babies sometimes create the romance, not the menu.)

And finally, we got Siri’s advice about our future family plans:

Well, that clears things up.

Giveaway: Thirty-One Gifts!

February 2, 2012February 1, 2012 Rachel Callahan Giveaways and Contests

I adore bags of all sorts.

Purses, diaper bags, tote bags, bags under my eyes…okay not that last one. But as for the rest, I love them all the more if they come in bright prints.

(Which, by the way, almost always means that my purse doesn’t in the slightest match my outfit. And I’m okay with that.)

Due to my bag obsession, I naturally love Thirty-One Gifts.

I was actually a latecomer to the party – they’ve been around for eight years, but I first discovered them when a sweet friend gave me a personalized Thermal Tote as a baby present for Noah.

Besides the fact that I was thrilled to have another excuse to carry around a brightly-printed bag, I had no idea how much a thermal tote was necessary for a baby – I’m pretty sure I’ve used it at least twice a week since he was born, but it still looks brand new.

Thirty-One does have a lot of fun bags of all sorts (purses, thermal totes, utility tote bags, laptop cases…), but they also have other products like stationery, home organizers, and aprons.

And you can also add embroidered personalization to most of the products, making them more meaningful to you and for gifts for others.

I love that the name Thirty-One comes from Proverbs 31, to celebrate hard-working women who are compassionate, giving, and inspirational to their families and the people around them.

I also really appreciate the fact that the founder was a working Mom that set out to meet a need that she had: a way to buy cute, boutique-like products after work hours. She also wanted to provide a way that women could make extra income for their families.

Thirty-One offers two ways to purchase their products: either online, or by hosting a real or virtual party, which also lets you earn free products.

They also have a special for the month of February, where if you order $31 worth of products, you get 31% off of any product of your choice!

There’s only one thing I love more than bright prints, and that’s dual coordinating prints, like these awesome thermal totes:

Colors like those just make me happy!

My friend Emily is a Thirty-One Consultant…

(Which means she has access to all the pretty prints…so jealous!!)

…and she graciously offered to give away a tote stuffed with fun and inspirational goodies to two of you!

You will have your choice between one of these six bags:

There are four Thermal Totes to pick from, which are perfect for carrying around lunch, drinks, and accessories for kids.

Or, the other two bags are Cinch-It-Up Thermals, which are bigger than most thermal bags, and can hold either a gallon jug or 12 cans of Coke.

(Or Soda or Pop, if you’re not from around here.)

Aren’t they fun??

If you’d like to enter, simply leave a comment on this post. You can earn up to four additional entries by:

Check out the Thirty-One Catalog and telling me your favorite product.
Follow Emily on Twitter.
Tweet, blog, or Facebook about this giveaway.
Follow me on Twitter or Facebook.

(be sure to leave separate comments for your extra entries.)

This giveaway is open until Monday, February 13th. The winner will be randomly selected and posted on my giveaway winners page on Tuesday, February 14th.

Good luck!!

Disclaimer: I was not compensated in any way to write this post. My opinions are always my own. And don’t judge me for my non-matching purse addiction.

CreepyHappy.

January 31, 2012January 30, 2012 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Stuff I like, Weird Strange and True

I have come to a life-changing realization. Life-CHANGING, I tell you.

I now know what my favorite movie genre is.

CreepyHappy.

(As opposed to my blog post yesterday, which was just CreepyCreepy.)

(Sorry about that.)

(Also, sorry about the misunderstandings as to which parts were real and which parts only happened in my head.)

(Hopefully I have since cleared all of that up.)

Anyway.

CreepyHappy.

We watched the preview of Kiefer Southerland’s new television show, “Touch”, after American Idol last week, and this is what led to my epiphany.

For the first half hour of the show, I felt intensely uncomfortable and pained for the characters involved.

But there must be buildup for CreepyHappy to occur.

And the second half hour made it all worth it. CreepyishHappiness overwhelmed me.

CreepyHappy: Moments in movies, television or books that give you repeated chills while you simultaneously experience emotions of great joy, excitement, awe, or thrill. Chills could be related to events of the paranormal, supernatural, spooky in a good way, or just plain amazingness of the events at hand.

Apparently, however, most people define CreepyHappy as “comprehensively, conclusively, and on all counts cheesy”. Which sadly creates a ridiculously small number of CreepyHappy products in the world.

So I want to get chills and be happy all at once – is that really too much to ask?

My favorite CreepyHappy movie of all time, Dragonfly, has a dismal rating of 7% approval on Rotten Tomatoes.

(I didn’t even know 7% was possible, except maybe in the case of a Barbie movie or Anaconda 2.)

(Speaking of Anaconda, I also like movies with large snakes in them, no matter how obviously mechanical they are. Which makes me think I’m beginning to form a case as to my horrible taste in movies altogether.)

Back to Dragonfly. Rotten Tomatoes summarizes my favorite movie as such:

“Sappy, dull, and muddled, Dragonfly is too melancholic and cliched to generate much suspense.”

Okay. So maybe I’m just gullible and don’t see it coming before it happens, but I loved it, even despite Kevin Costner being the leading man. I loved it so much that I might have still loved it if Nicholas Cage had been the star.

This genre recognition also explains my favorite Christmas movie, Noelle, and my three favorite books, Ted Dekker’s Blessed Child , A Man Called Blessed , and Blink of an Eye. I’ve been a CreepyHappy chaser for years and just didn’t know it.

So now that I have identified this extremely important piece of the puzzle that is Rachel, I am on a mission to identify and watch or read all CreepyHappiness in the world.

Ghost, City of Angels, Dragonfly…and that’s all I’ve got right now.

What else is out there?

And don’t be afraid to recommend it just because it’s cheesy and cliché – because I apparently like that kind of thing.

The Blog Post That Never Was.

January 30, 2012January 30, 2012 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, I embarrass myself just for your amusement., I'm a Glutton for Adventure, It's Tough Being a Girl, Newbornities

Disclaimer: Not for the faint of heart. Or men. In fact, I don’t recommend reading this post at all. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I have finally completed the weaning process.

This was harder than I expected – not for Noah, but for me. The reality that he is most likely my last child and is too grown-up to be metaphorically (and not-so-metaphorically) attached to me is pretty hard to accept. After all, twenty-one months of giving him life-support of one sort or another is a hard habit to kick.

However.

Nursing Noah was not always so enjoyable.

When he first decided to grow a pair (of teeth, that is), he wasn’t exactly the most sensitive of babies.

He bit.

Often.

And violently.

He especially enjoyed biting down, holding his grip with the veracity of a snapping turtle, and then yanking as hard as he possibly could, all while growling in a Paleolithic manner.

When he attained an upper and lower pair, The Situation was upgraded to Beyond Cruel and Unusual Punishment. There were times when I would ache for hours after nursing him due to his piercing sharpness, sheer determination, and sadistic mindset.

During these moments of intense pain and fear, my instincts would take over.

Meaning, of course, that I would find myself involuntarily composing a blog post in my head.

The blog post was always the same one: the story of what I knew was about to occur at any moment – the tearing of flesh.

This instinct alone carried me through many excruciating feedings by giving me something with which to entertain and distract my mind from the brutality at hand.

(Well, not at hand, per say.)

Now that breastfeeding is done and the possibility is a blessed impossibility, I decided to sit down and write out that blog post – a post that was mentally composed and recomposed perhaps more than any other piece I’ve ever written.

Second Disclaimer: QUIT READING NOW. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

(And let me clarify…the following is only what happened in my head during those tortuous moments. It IS fiction.)

It was like any other night. I was lovingly providing my baby with sustenance, nutritional superpowers, and the feeling of love and belonging.

He was reciprocating by treating me like I was in a torture camp in the backwoods of North Korea.

(Do they have woods in North Korea?)

Suck, swallow, bite, chomp, yank.

Suck, swallow, bite, chomp, yank,

RIIIIIIIP.

I heard the sound that no one should ever have to hear unless they bought chicken breasts with the skin on and have no way of removing it but with their bare hands.

I screamed louder than my “I just saw a roach” scream – which translates into approximately two times more resonant than The Dread Pirate Roberts screeched during his stay at Count Rugen’s Death Machine.

(In fact, I’m pretty sure that Miracle Max and his wife most definitely had their dinner interrupted by the sound of my wail. Not that they did anything about it, of course – they just complained about the noise level of the forest these days and went back to eating their chocolate-coated matzo ball soup.)

My scream shocked Noah enough to freeze him in place for a moment, and I (…and these are words that you never want to find yourself in the position to type…) dug around in his mouth and retrieved my nipple.

Chris came running in, roach spray in hand.

He quickly assessed the situation, noticed my spouting, bloody chest somewhat akin to the Black Knight’s flesh wound, and quickly dropped his can of husbandly defense.

It hit me at this point that I was still screaming, rhythmically and repeatedly.

This can’t be good for my lungs. Or bloodflow.

I calmed down and handed Chris my nipple.

“Prepare this for transportation.”

“What? Do you think it’s fixable?”

“I have no idea, but we should probably keep all accessories just in case.”

He ran out of the room – I presumed to find some ice. After all, that’s how they handle body parts on TV.

He called 911.

I called my Mom.

“Hey, Mom? I know it’s late, but can you come over, like right now, and stay with the kids for a little while?”

“Sure! Why?”

“Well, I need to go get my nipple put back on.”

I yelled at Chris to quit calling 911. We have to wait until Mom gets here anyway – we might as well drive ourselves.

Noah, meanwhile, was innocently staring up at me, with a “Thanks for the delicious snack, Mom!” look on his face. I wiped the blood off of his dimpled cheeks, plopped him in his crib, and told him to have a blast putting himself to bed. FROM NOW ON.

After what seemed like hours of applying pressure and waiting and driving and filling out paperwork and carrying around a body part on the rocks, we finally got put into an ER room. I sat and stared at Chris. He sat and stared at my chest.

The doctor strolled in and froze.

“What happened here?”

“Um. Well, my baby bit off my nipple.”

“Wow. That beats out the girl who came in here a few years ago at 3 AM after she impaled her hand while sleepwalking.”

“Awesome – because that was me, too.”

And that’s as far as I ever got.

Pop-Up Pageant.

January 27, 2012January 26, 2012 Rachel Callahan Utter Silliness

So I know that The Miss America Pageant was two weeks ago.

I’ve been busy – what can I say?

Plus, I just got the opportunity to re-watch parts of the pageant with Ali for our annual viewing party of “The Princesses of the States”.

And really, The Pageant is like a Pixar movie – you need to watch it at least twice to pick up on all of the beautiful subtleties.

Granted, some things were easily appreciated the first time watching it through, as I was checking my favorite annual moments off like a Sequin-Covered Scavenger Hunt.

Such as…

Who will make this year’s flatulence joke?

“Just like a Las Vegas Buffet, we have more natural gas than any other state – I’m Miss West Virginia!!!”

Who will come out gift-wrapped?

Thanks for taking that one, Miss Alabama.

Who will take America’s breath away with her humility and down-to-earthness?

“I think that once you get past the pretty hair, the perfect makeup, the great body, and the beautiful smile, what I want America to know about me is that I have a heart for people.” – Miss Louisiana

Who will bring it all back around to the real reason for the Miss America Pageant, the Scholarships?

“[My evening gown] has a lot of sex appeal, with the high slit and the low cut top. But it’s just showcasing the body I’ve worked so hard on.” — Miss Illinois

But the part that I definitely appreciated more the second viewing was the talent competition, despite this year’s serious lacking of a proper yodeler.

Because we’re a Twitter generation, it would be ludicrous to assume that a 90 second song or dance could hold our attention solely on it’s own, so this year they added pop-up facts.

And the facts they chose to share with America…fascinating stuff, I tell you.

Ali and I learned that Miss Tennessee was an aspiring Cougar,

That Miss California was thrilled with the fact that .002% of her state cares about what she has to say,

That Miss Illinois was…how does that even come up in real life??

And then she had me Googling her second fact … only to find out that her first one would have fallen under it.

(Which means the Windmill fear must be especially intense, what with getting named specifically and all.)

Miss Oklahoma, however, is not nearly as afraid of getting up close and personal with large objects.

Miss Texas felt the need to state the obvious,

and then make us all ask “Well why DIDN’T you, then??”

Miss Wisconsin showed her ignorance as to the definition of the word “secretly”,

And Miss New York just made us wonder.

And finally, Miss Louisiana left me envisioning a dozen different scenarios in which this could have possibly occurred.

So this got me thinking.

What would my pop-up facts be?

Perhaps,

And of course there’s always,

If only there were pop-up facts in real life, because now I’m consumed with curiosity as to what all of yours are.

A Culmination of Sweet, Sweet Justice.

January 25, 2012January 24, 2012 Rachel Callahan Delicious Greekness, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Storytime, Weird Strange and True

Chris and I went to Atlanta last weekend. I had a couple of Vault parties in The Big City, and he tagged along to make it a date weekend.

Friday night, we went out to eat at Taverna Plaka with Chris’ former roommate and Roommate’s Girlfriend.

If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, the name “Taverna Plaka” should conjure up images of Greek belly dancers, us dancing with belly dancers, and maybe even Chris and his blinky-tied uncle dancing on a table with belly dancers.

But despite our many past adventures, we somehow forgot how loud it could get, and went with the intention of catching up with an old friend and getting to know his girlfriend.

Hard to do when you can’t hear each other yell an inch away from your face.

We’d only met Roommate’s Girlfriend (R.G.) once before (and it was very briefly), so we were on our best behavior. We were polite, we were complimentary of Roommate, and we tried to actually hear every word R.G. said, despite the Greek Dance Music vibrating off of the ceiling and napkins being thrown all over us.

When our drinks arrived at the table, Roommate mentioned that it was a good thing that R.G. ordered water, because she was the most notorious drink-spiller in the entire world.

Chris and I smiled knowingly at each other.

I piped up, as Chris simultaneously tried to shush me.

“Oh NO! I hope you don’t spill a drink tonight!! Spilled drinks are Chris’ ONE pet peeve in the entire world!!”

Chris got embarrassed.

“Now, now, don’t tell her that. She’ll think I’m a terrible person!!”

But you see, it’s true. It doesn’t matter if a drink spill occurs three rooms away from him and was perpetrated by an innocent one year old or by his thirty year old wife, he WILL notice and he WILL huff and puff and get all bent out of shape.

I, too, was once a drink spiller. But because of his extreme issue with this particular character flaw, I have learned to NEVER spill.

The kids, however, are still learning. Which causes us to regularly have conversations about our differing philosophies regarding reactions to accidents.

I explained all of this to her.

Chris, albeit ashamed, couldn’t deny the truth. We all have our weaknesses, after all.

R.G. was amused, and a little glad she’d picked the right man for her situation.

She and Roommate told us the story of how she spilled an entire gigantic-Mexican-Restaurant-cup in his lap on their first date, and then toward the end of the very same meal, spilled an entire gigantic-Mexican-Restaurant-cup into her own plate. And how this trend had been a constant in their relationship henceforth.

Chris was amused, and a little glad he’d picked the right woman for his situation.

The music kicked up and our conversation died down.

And then, as we sat waiting for the opportunity to continue our conversation, it happened.

For the first time in thirteen years.

There aren’t enough superlatives in the English language to adequately describe it, but it was magical.

Chris reached for his Diet Coke, and his aim was a little off.

His FULL Diet Coke.

He knocked it with his hand, and every last drop ran for gleeful freedom in my direction.

My mouth hung open in shock as the world as I knew it spun off it’s axis.

The freed drink seeped from my bra to the tips of my socks, and quite literally puddled in my lap. An impressive number of especially aggressive drops made it all the way to the other side of my chair and showered my purse, with a particular concentration on my iPhone.

I quickly watched Chris’ face, waiting for him to implode and disappear off the face of the earth.

He was sitting there, gasping for breath, having a complete internal existential crisis as he watched the laws of physics as he understood them completely betray him.

“But…I barely touched it!! I didn’t even feel it!! How did that happen?!?!?!”

I began to laugh. Hysterically. Evilly. Gloatingly.

I gasped between waves of laughter.

“You can…never…ever…ever…EVER…get mad…at…another spilled drink….ever again!!”

He somehow managed to come back to earth and unwrapped all of our silverware in attempts to use the 0% absorbent pieces of useless cloth to soak up his mess.

I handed him my iPhone.

“You fix that. I’ll work on the rest.”

I blotted and laughed. I picked up my purse, watched Coke pour out of it, and laughed. I felt down to the bottom of my now-carbonated boots and laughed.

Roommate and R.G. looked on, confused.

“So…I take it this has never happened before?”

My eyes shone with the victory that can only be found in a long-fought battle. “I have been waiting for this moment for THIRTEEN YEARS. And it is glorious.”

Epilogue:

Roommate and R.G. now both think that we’re a little batty, especially since I continued to break out in spontaneous whooping laughter for the remainder of the evening.

Chris is beginning his process of acceptance of the world as it now is, which is crushing to his soul.

And I, still slightly damp and a bit sticky, am shouting “TAVERNA!” at the top of my lungs the minute anyone spills anything. FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE.

Alabama’s Recurring Nightmare.

January 24, 2012January 23, 2012 Rachel Callahan Tornadoes

Thank you all for your concerned tweets, comments, emails, and Facebook messages yesterday.

We are okay.

Living in Alabama, as much as I adore it otherwise, is beginning to feel like a nasty game of Tornado Roulette.

Just the mention of tornadoes has a vastly different impact on me (and most likely the rest of the state) than it did before last April. Combine that anxiety with knowing an entire day beforehand that a potentially severe tornado outbreak is coming in the middle of the night, and it becomes nearly beyond bearable.

They began talking Sunday morning about what was to come between midnight and 6 AM. We were driving back from Atlanta, and we began to dread the night.

I laid in bed for hours Sunday night, wide awake, mind racing about a dozen different things, but with an ever-present anxiety over what could happen in the coming hours.

I finally fell asleep somewhere after 1 AM.

At 3 AM, the tornado sirens began blaring. Chris’ weather radio app began beeping loudly. And the wind began howling.

Chris started watching the satellite radar on his phone. Being that I had only been asleep for two hours, I somehow stayed in that bizarre state of not-awake-but-not-asleep, even though it seemed like they had set the sirens to some sort of tortuous yet merciful continuous repeat cycle.

Chris stayed awake for two hours, eyes glued to his iPhone screen. Our weather radio app has street-level drill down capabilities, so he was able to watch in detail as the EF-3 tornado progressed through the county.

Knowing that he would wake me if we needed to run to the basement, I somehow managed to keep half-dozing.

As it came toward us, we were within two streets of being included in what is known as The Polygon, which is the area of possible tornado track. Just as Chris was ready to jump up, grab Ali and tell me to grab Noah, the tornado jogged northeast.

He went back to sleep at 5, only to be woken again at 6:30 by his phone ringing. I listened in my grogginess to murmured phone call after phone call.

The tornado had hit the street that his office is on.

The power was out, but the building was okay.

Some of the employees who live closer to the office than we do were trapped in their neighborhoods by debris and trees.

Main roads were completely inaccessible.

I listened to his end of the calls through my grogginess.

No, no, no!! Why do we have to go through this again?

This just isn’t supposed to happen in January. This isn’t supposed to happen in January!!

After the kids and I woke up, ate breakfast, and finished our morning routines, I began to look at the local news.

The images … chilled me.

Although I haven’t been able to get out to any of the damaged areas myself, my television screen has been filled with sights like this,

And this.

Just like last time, just a mere twenty minutes away from our house.

The stories made me bite my lip to hold back the tears.

…A father and son, yanked out of their house and deposited into the family’s swimming pool – they lived through it. The mother, severely injured but alive, was buried under debris. The sixteen year old daughter, still on her mattress, eyes closed as if still peacefully asleep, was found dead 40 feet away from their house.

The damage was not nearly as widespread as it was nine months ago, but to those hit, it was just as devastating.

So far, three are known to have lost their lives.

Over a hundred were injured.

Countless houses were lost, businesses were destroyed, and neighborhoods were ravaged.

And they are still digging through the debris.

I groaned at the thought of reliving it all over again.

But I was also thankful.

Thankful that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Thankful that so many lives were saved by the plentiful warnings ahead of time.

Thankful that Alabama knows how to handle tornadoes and that so many are already jumping into action.

So very thankful that my family, yet again, was safe.

James Spann captured my feelings best with this fabulous photo.

Though the destruction is great, our hope is greater.

For those of you who have asked how you can help, here are a few ways:

1. Keep praying!! Your notes that you were praying for Alabama meant so much.

– Pray that if there are any more survivors in the rubble, they would be found and helped immediately.
– Pray for the families that have lost everything as they try to cope with their new reality.
– Pray for the recovery workers’ strength and safety.

2. The Christian Service Mission has done such an excellent job at providing immediate and practical help to Alabamians in need, so I set up a Causes page to allow anyone to make donations directly to them. They were the backbone of the last tornado relief efforts, and they are already stepping up to do more than their share of recovery again. Since they are locally based and do not have large amounts of overhead, supporting them goes a long way toward helping the community.

Specifically for other Alabamians wanting to help:

1. If you blog about your experience with this week’s or last April’s tornadoes and link it here, the Alabama Disaster Relief Blogging Program will donate $25 to the Christian Service Mission.

2. I’m sure there are many churches offering support and relief, but the one I know of so far is Northpark Baptist Church on Deerfoot Parkway. As of yesterday afternoon, they were in immediate need of Water, Snacks, and Plywood.

3. If you have goods to donate to the Christian Service Mission, they will be accepting them at their downtown warehouse starting tomorrow. You can also like their Facebook Page to keep up to date with their needs.

I will update this list if I hear of other opportunities.

Thank you all for your kindness and support!

On Being Truman.

January 23, 2012January 22, 2012 Rachel Callahan Blogging: the therapy., I'm a Blog Geek, Kids: The Experience.

This post has been written and in my drafts folder for over a month, hence the Christmas references. I went back and forth about publishing it or not because there are parts of it that could be construed as me being arrogant about blogging. I don’t ever want to come across that way. I am well aware that I am not some super-popular blogger, and I don’t want to ever give off the “internet celebrity” vibe, seeing as how it is quite untrue. However, Ali’s feelings about my blogging is something that people often ask about, so I still felt that this post had some intrinsic value and potential interest.

(Can you tell that I might have a problem with overanalyzation? Just a tiny one. Nothing major.)

So, I shall publish this post, as long as you promise not to shake your head while saying something along the lines of “boy, she must really think SHE’S something.”

Okay?

Okay.

“Hey Mommy? There’s something that I’ve always wondered, and I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time.”

“Sure, honey. What is it?”

“Are we in a story?”

“Well, actually, we are. You know about my blog? It’s where I write stories about what we do and about other things, and people come and read them.”

“So if we’re in a story, are we in real life too?”

“Yes – we’re definitely in both.”

“How do you get out of a story? Do you have to go to heaven to escape?”

“Well, I guess I could quit writing it… do you want me to?”

“No…but we’re in real life too, right??”

“Yes. Don’t worry – I promise we’re real.”

At first, I thought this was a random four year old conversation. But the more I thought about it, I realized that Ali must be finally picking up on the fact that some people seem to know her even if she doesn’t know them, and they always seem to know what she did last week.

Whenever this happens to her (often at Church, or if we meet a blog reader for a playdate or something), she gets very shy and uncomfortable, and I guess she wasn’t quite clear on how exactly these people knew everything about her.

…not that this new understanding helped her deal with her life voyeurs…

The next day, we went to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Nabeel’s. Ali was admiring the murals on the wall, and began asking our waitress about them. The waitress kindly told her all about them and the man who painted them. While she explained, she addressed Ali and Noah by name.

When she walked away, I explained…

“Remember yesterday when we talked about the stories Mommy writes on her blog? That lady reads them – that’s how she knew who you were. Isn’t that fun?”

(I swear this doesn’t happen often – and I already happened to know that this waitress read my blog.)

Ali immediately clammed up and looked shocked. She seemed even more disconcerted than ever about her real-and-not-real existence.

A few days later, we received several Christmas cards from blog readers, and a sweet little package from one especially awesome reader.

She had hand stitched tiny stockings with all of our names on them, each one having a different design.

Fabulous, no??

Ali absolutely loved these ornaments, and proceeded to play with them for the rest of the night.

I once again tried to help Ali see the positive side of blogging…

“These are from a lady that reads the stories I write on the internet. Isn’t that sweet of her to send them?”

“Yes!!”

I was relieved that maybe she was coming to terms with the whole idea.

After a little more thought, she added,

“But if she reads all about me on the internet, then why did she put my name on the snowman stocking?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, my FAVORITE stocking is the Christmas Tree one. If she really reads all of your stories about me, why wouldn’t she KNOW that it would be my favorite?!?”

…And that’s how long it takes to turn a kid into a diva.

Tangled With Party Spirit.

January 19, 2012June 11, 2012 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, Anal Retentivity to a Fault, Kids: The Experience., The Blissfulness of Life

Caution: Overly Photoey post ahead with many vague Tangled references that only a Mom who has been forced to watch it 876 times would understand.

I am not a crafty person.

(Mainly because I’m an extremely lazy person.)

But you better believe that when I do get a crafty spark, you’re absolutely going to hear about it right here.

I put it off for weeks. But when I finally worked up the courage to pop the birthday party question, Ali’s answer was,

“I just want to have a couple of friends over to our house.”

I almost cried with gratitude.

Home… a couple of friends… this I could handle.

But my outpouring of appreciation for my daughter’s ungrand plans birthed a baby of craftiness within my soul.

(Ironic, really.)

She wanted a Tangled party. And, since she and I had just painted Rapunzel’s “floating lanterns” picture, I used it as a wall-hanging for the party and my muse a la décor.

I wanted to make her and her guests Rapunzel hair. I looked on Pinterest and Etsy for ideas, but couldn’t find anything easy enough for my lazy self to undertake. So I decided to design my own, using some leftover yarn from our Treasure Heads project.

I measured it out, thanks to Noah for the use of his pack n’ play:

I cut it all off at one corner, leaving about 25 really long strands. I found the middle and knotted it.

I started braiding from each side of the knot until it fit around Ali’s head (with the knot in the middle kinda like a hairy crown), then combined the two sets of the yarn and braided them together into a big center braid reaching to the floor:

But then I was so happy with my braids that I actually wanted to keep crafting.

So craft I did.

I found a great pattern for the bunting in the Tangled city scene made by Paging Supermom. I printed off a bunch and let Ali string them using leftover Christmas ribbon.

“Daddy!!! Come see my BUNTING!!!!”

(Bunting is a great vocabulary word, by the way.)

Well, then I realized – if we were going to have bunting, we needed some floating lanterns.

So I found a tutorial for making lanterns out of scrapbook paper, of which I happened to have a ton of from the whole mod podge frame era.

We made twenty lanterns, and then I let Ali glitter-glue them to her heart’s content.

I didn’t want to hang them all individually (remember – lazy), so I strung some elastic beading string across the living room, then cut slits on each side of the lanterns like so…

then inserted them onto our (nearly) invisible string.

The crafty ball was rollin’ and I couldn’t stop it.

I then got the idea of having Flynn’s satchels as goody bags. I found a roll of parcel paper hidden deep in the closet and put all of my Project Runway watching skills to good use.

But after using too many kid-unfriendly staples in my first satchel and taking an entire morning to make another one without sharp metal objects holding it together, I decided that those kids weren’t getting the fruit of my labor.

Instead, I decided that I would be the lone satchel carrier, and what better thing to put in the satchel than crowns to hand out?

But then there was the issue of boys.

One boy was on Ali’s short guest list, and two more male siblings of guests would be in attendance. I didn’t want them to feel morose about attending a princess party, so I began devising schemes in which I could assist them with manly feelings.

(Is there such as thing as manly feelings? I digress.)

Swords instead of braids and crowns – check.

Ooh – how about a wanted poster?

I found an image online of the Flynn poster, got their moms to send me a picture of their sons looking especially arrogant, then Photoshopped their photos onto the poster and used the coloring book technique plus a sepia wash to make the photos look like drawings:

My grand total for my projects: $3.99. Who knew I didn’t have a one-hole punch?

At 10:00 pm the night before the party, I finally finished all of my preparations and fell in a heap on the couch, wondering how I’d ever amped myself up for all of this un-laziness.

Chris came and sat with me with a thoughtful look on his face.

“Hey…you know that dress you have that you used to wear for Mardi Gras balls before we had kids?”

“Yes…”

“It’d make a perfect Mother Gothel dress.”

“You’re right…it would.

…But I couldn’t….all the Mommies would totally think I was crazy!!”

“Yes, but Ali — Ali would think you were magnificent!! And it is her Birthday, after all.”

So with that heaping pile of guilt, I thought about it. I weighed my dignity versus the birthday thrill of my only little girl.

And I went for it. Red pointy shoes and all, I greeted everyone at the door as an Evil Disney Kidnapper.