I went to lunch with Jennifer and her three kids today. We had a great time, and Ali looooved getting to see “Amy Beff”, until I was holding her, then she didn’t like it so much (she kept saying “Amy Beff Scare you”, but what she meant was “I’m really jealous of Amy Beth”).
I had asked Jennifer if she wanted to get together before she picked Harris up for school so that she only had to go to lunch with two children rather than three, which seems like it would be quite formidable to me. However, she was good with taking all three, and here are the facts of lunch:
Whose child poked a hole into the styrofoam cup and dumped water all over themselves and their mother while sitting in their mother’s lap under her watchful eyes? That would be my ONE child, not one that belonged to the mother keeping up with three children.
Who checked their phone while watching the two smaller children, and didn’t notice that the smallest was choking? That would be the mother of ONE, not of three.
Who accidentally slung squash baby food all over the booth and the back of the seat when trying to help with the choking baby incident? You guessed it, that would be the mother of ONE, not of three.
In short, Jennifer stayed more poised, more in control, less covered in water and baby squash, and less exhausted by the end of the meal than I did.
Some people are just better at handling broods of children than others. Or, in my case, some people are better at handling three children than I am at handling one.
Disclaimer to the Grandparents that may or may not read this: Don’t worry. This post is all meant in fun . . .sorta.
For a bit of background, our small group (6 couples) meets on Thursday nights. Currently it is hosted by Chuck and Lydia. We all start arriving at 7pm, and don’t usually leave until 11 or 11:30. Eleven out of twelve of our kids (who are all 5 years old and under) actually go to sleep at their house, then we wake them up to take them home, and they actually go back to sleep at home. It is quite miraculous. And it is unbelievably rich in real relationships, bible study, accountability, and friendships.
So last night, we arrive right at 7pm. Chuck and Lydia’s cars are there, but no one else’s. No surprise – we’re usually the first to arrive. We lug our baby and all of her gear up to the front door. I get there with my load first, and try the door. It’s open, so I let myself in. There are no immediate signs of life (which is weird since they have three kids), but the oven timer is going off.
I quickly go into the kitchen and smell a slightly burnt-chocolate smell. Odd. How long had the timer been going off?
I pull the cake out of the oven. It looks fine, but it has a bit of an overdone smell to it.
I call out, “hellllo??”
Silence.
I walk into the living room.
Nothing.
By this time, Ali and Chris have made it in, and I tell him what I have found so far.
Chris heads into Chuck and Lydia’s bedroom. Nothing.
At this point, the evidence is starting to freak us out: Two cars at home, oven beeping, cake burning, front door unlocked, Lydia’s cell phone sitting on the table. . . what in the world?
After a few more minutes of pondering and looking around, Chris gives me Ali and tells me he is going upstairs alone to look for them. We are both having worst-case-scenario thoughts going through our head but neither one of us are saying them.
Chris searches the upstairs. Nothing.
I tell Chris to try Chuck’s cell phone. He dials the number, and we’re both cringing, waiting to hear it ring in the other room.
Relief washes over us when Chuck answers and says, “I bet you’re at my house!”
They were next door delivering Christmas presents.
So Chris told him that he would quit searching the house for their bodies.
Oh – and the cake was delicious. But Lydia had forgotten about it being in the oven. And I was appropriately lauded as cake savior.
Ali has been completely taken with this necklace: It is the FIRST thing that she asks for every morning, and the LAST thing that I pry off of her every night (and at naptimes, people. Don’t worry. I don’t let my toddler sleep with a cord of wires around her neck).
My Bible Study teacher had one on when we went to lunch last week (that luckily didn’t get ruined when Ali coated her with my coke). Ali adored it, and wore it during lunch. I remembered that Sue had given me one several years back, so later that day, I rooted around in my jewelry and found it.
You would have thought that I’d given Ali the best present in the world.
The only problem was, it was kind of like when in Indiana Jones, they unwrap a perfectly preserved body that is like 200 years old, then as soon as one of them touches it, it immediately disintegrates into nothingness.
That poor necklace was so old that a) the lights didn’t blink any more, and b) the lights immediately started falling off. About every five minutes, Ali was trying to “fix it”. Then she would beg me – “Mommy fix necklace!!”.
She wore it nonstop for several days, losing at least three lights per hour, until there were many more empty sockets than lights.
However, its increasing ugliness unfortunately did not dampen Ali’s love for her piece of fine jewelry. But it finally scared me enough (with all the loose wires hanging off and all) that I hid it, and told her that she must have left it upstairs/downstairs (yup, using that parental deception again).
But alas, what are Godmothers for but to make their Godchildren unbelievably and exceedingly happy, with a brand new, actually working, blinking-like-crazy necklace? That’s right – blinking plastic lights are the new diamond.
Thankful Thursday is a weekly column where I post what I am thankful about that week, and you have the opportunity (via your blog linked into this post OR via a comment on this blog) to share your thankful thought for the week. You know that this is going to be an honest post when I am writing it with tears in my eyes.
It has been a rough week at work. Due to the slowdown of the economy which pretty much brought the commercial construction industry to a halt, our company has not been nearly as busy as usual. We knew it was headed in a slow direction, and we were adamantly praying that God would provide new work.
Chris and I have been praying fervently for weeks. I have prayed for each individual at work daily – that God would allow us to have work to keep them employed. We have prayed that God would provide a sacrificial lamb (a job) just in time to keep anyone from having to be laid off. We have believed that God was going to wow us with His perfect timing and miraculous provision.
But it hasn’t happened.
Chris had to lay two guys off on Tuesday that were very dear to him. This was a hugely gut-wrenching decision and process. It broke our hearts.
So I’m sure you’re wondering where the thankful part of my Thursday is going to come in.
I cannot stress enough that I am SO thankful.
I am thankful that no matter what, God IS still in control and He DOES know what He is doing. I would surely be in despair and panic right now were it not for my belief in the fact that “we know that in allthings God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28) and “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isa. 55:8-9).
I am absolutely CONFIDENT that God is working his best plan out in our lives, as well as our friends that happen to be employees of the company. God does not forsake His children, and He WILL provide. That doesn’t mean that God won’t let us go through trials, because “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4). Also, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. “ (Rom. 5:3-5).
The thing is, some of the richest times in my life have been birthed out of great pain. God uses pain. Pain draws us closer to Him than anything else, because it reveals our utter humanness and our desperate need for a Savior.
We have prayed with all of our hearts. We have sought His will. We have followed as best as we could. All we can do now is rest in His arms and wait.
And I am thankful for that peace, rest, and confidence in the midst of storms.
OK – your turn!! What are you thankful for today? Leave it in a comment, or if you have a blog, write a post on your blog and link it in with Mr. Linky (at the bottom of this post), and you can have the pleasure of welcoming my wonderful readers to your site!
To use Mr. Linky to link to your blog, just type in your name in the first slot, then copy and paste the URL of your blog post in the second one and click “Enter” – then there will be a link to your post from my blog! ***be sure to put the link to your actual “Thankful Thursday” post – not just your main blog URL.***
Ali and I decided to do some creative “coloring” yesterday. We used Play-Doh instead of crayons to color our pages. Ali understood the concept a lot better than I thought that she would: Inspecting her (although mostly my) work: Of course, not too happy that she had a teeny smidge of Play-Doh on her finger. Such a girly-girl. “Mommy get it off!!!” By the way, these great coloring pages can be printed for free at Scripture Melodies, a site that some friends of ours created to house the wonderful scripture memory songs that they have written, along with accompanying coloring pages. I have found that the coloring pages are great for Ali – they are simple and easy to understand and color, and she loves recognizing people from the scriptures on them – Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Angels, etc. I highly recommend them!
More creative play. Five years ago, I probably would have laughed at my Mom for how many toys of ours that she still had. However, it’s so fun to see Ali playing with my favorite childhood toys. So nostalgic!
Sitting the Little People down for a yummy meal of goldfish (those are big catches in proportion to the little people!!):I love this pose. So little kiddish!! With my whole dollhouse set: See my other Wordless Wednesday post at B-Sides! Check out everyone else’s Wordless Wednesday post at 5 Minutes for Mom!
I saw a little girl around Ali’s age and her Daddy at the grocery store yesterday. She had on a new and shiny dressy brown and pink polka dotted shoe on her left foot, and a raggedy old tennishoe on her right foot. Being that the tennishoe was taller than the dress shoe, she was kind of walking crooked.
My floorboard seems to be a magnet for orphaned umbrellas. Both Deidre and Gina left them in my car last week. And I’m terrible at remembering to return things like that, and like rubbermaid. Just ask my Mom. I think I have at least half of her dishes at my house.
So, please consider this a public service announcement that if you left your umbrella in my car, please remember to get it back from me. Or rubbermaid at my house. Please don’t count on me to remember it!
There was a full-length fat-mirror at the hotel that we stayed in last weekend. The only problem was, I didn’t realize that it was a fat-mirror until the last day. So therefore, it gave me a fat complex all weekend.
Which really stinks, especially since I was shopping and made the mistake of trying on grossly-small-sized-boutique-jeans (something that I have already learned my lesson on but can’t seem to quit doing).
Anyway, it turns out that the mirror was proven to be without a doubt a fat-mirror. On Sunday before we left, I was standing in the bathroom looking into the hallway where the full-length mirror was. Then I looked to my right where the bathroom mirror was, and I immediately lost 30 pounds. And several inches of width. And that was in my face alone!!
I inspected said fat-mirror, and sure enough, it was curved out from the wall, therefore creating that short, fat, curvy look that I’d been paranoid about all weekend long.
I was so angry at the fat-mirror. I wanted to report it to the hotel and tell them that it was no way to make their guests feel special.
I’m working on recovering from my weekend-long complex, but I’m sure you ladies understand out there that it’s not an easy task, even IF a plausible explanation is discovered.
Yes, I made up that word. Here’s the Grasping for Objectivity Abridged Dictionary entry for it:
Uniquities – “you-KNEE-quit-ease” – kind of like the word “antiquities”, but instead of antique, think unique.
There’s nothing like a car trip to get off on a random subject. When we’re on car trips alone (a la no Ali), we always like to XM radio surf to see what’s new out there (probably how I originally heard that “Apple Bottom Jeans” song last year). Sometimes, we’ll run into a song or artist from our teenage or early married years that bring back a flood of fun memories.
On yesterday’s trip home from Atlanta, it was The Cranberries.
The Cranberries are one of those groups that you know who they are the second the song comes on. They are unique. They have never been emulated, and they are timeless. And that is what I would like to propose be called a Musical Uniquity.
The thing about M.U.’s is that because they are so unique in their sound and style, they can’t be “pinned down” to a time period, because they don’t necessarily fit into the box of any time period. They don’t follow the trends, nor do they start a trend. Therefore, they are unique, and they are timeless. Or at least, their music ages much more gracefully than the rest of the industry.
Also,for official definitional purposes, they lose their title of a M.U. if they start at trend. For instance, I would assume that Elvis was a M.U. when he first came out. However, he became the King of Rock and Roll – he birthed a whole new type of music. In my example of The Cranberries, they did no such thing. It’s just The Cranberries that sound like The Cranberries, which qualifies them to be in the M.U. category.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I would definitely say that Chris and I are drawn to M.U.’s. I can’t put my finger on why this is true, but it seems like a lot of our favorite bands would definitely fall into the category.
So after we defined this genre of no genres, here are our inductions as Musical Uniquities:
The Cranberries
Dave Matthews Band
R.E.M.
Simon and Garfunkel
Burlap to Cashmere
Jars of Clay
Evanescence
Plumb
Rich Mullins
PFR
Oddly enough, as few concerts as Chris and I have been to, most of the ones we HAVE attended are right up there in that list – Burlap to Cashmere (twice), Simon and Garfunkel (THAT was a historic occasion), R.E.M., Rich Mullins, and I’m pretty sure that Chris saw Dave Matthews Band in High School or College.
And a couple more that we don’t necessarily like, but we admit that they would definitely fit the category of M.U.’s:
Eminem
John Mayer
So. Who are some artists that you would say fit into the Musical Uniquities genre?
And, are you also drawn more to M.U.’s than to artists who very obviously fit their time period’s ideas of music?
Remember the guidelines for an M.U.: – don’t fit into a genre – didn’t create a new genre – timeless
I am especially curious of the M.U.’s of the past and the M.U.’s of today, as most of my examples are from the late nineties and the early 00’s.
Before I get to today’s Christmas shopping extravaganza, I decided to share a few pictures from our event Dinner at Taverna Plaka last night. If you haven’t read my post about our first trip to this restaurant, you may want to start there to help you with necessary Greek History, like the meaning of the word “OPA!!!”.
Without further ado,
There was more table dancing. NOT by us. However, Belly Dancer that we named “Light Blue” decided that we needed to dance with her. Here she is confidently trying to convince our very unsure husbands to dance with her. Their excitement is evidenced by Leo’s hasty backing away and Chris’ protesting:However, she prevailed. The “White Man’s Dancing Mouth Position” is a very important key to belly dancing as illustrated here: Then she came and got me. I quickly learned that I have MUCH better rhythm sitting down than standing up. Apparently my legs don’t get dancing AT ALL, and my Greek heritage doesn’t give me ANY innate belly-dancing (or any other dancing) abilities. . . . and I have that same WMD Mouth Position. Told you it was important.
And finally, here’s a video of more fun from Taverna Plaka. They got a line of people to circle the whole restaurant doing some sort of Greek Line Dance. Seeing as how I had already realized my lack of dancing abilities, I stayed off of the line so as to not ruin it.
Ok. So on to today. Kitty and I had a Christmas Shopping spree at the wonderful Malls on either side of our hotel (Phipps Plaza and Lenox Square Mall).
Being that Atlanta is a fashion mecca (at least compared to Birmingham), we got to see lots of “interesting” items.
One item that caught my attention by completely blinding and knocking me to the floor with their solar power were these lovely gold lamé leggings: There have recently been posts by a couple of my favorite bloggers about tacky leggings, including one by Stephanie that is specifically about gold lamé leggings. So I decided to kick it up a notch and go where no blogger has gone before.
That’s right. I tried ’em on.
But not until I found an equally tacky shirt with gold lamé detail on the shoulders: I know, I needed some tacky gold stiletto’s to go with them, but I was not going to be wearing that outfit to the shoe department in order to finish the outfit.
It brought back memories of being a Junior Higher and trying on prom dresses. Oh, the days. . .
I really wish I could fully describe the feeling of those pants. Pictures don’t do them justice. They were Pure, 24 carat, rubber-gold. I seriously felt like a character from Star Wars when I put them on. Maybe I could wear them to Dragon*Con next year. . .
Now on to more mall observations before I decide to delete that photo.
OK – you remember that song that came out last year that went “Apple Bottom Jeans. . . boots with the fur”? I never CHOSE to listen to that song, but it seemed to be playing everywhere I went. It was inescapable.
Anyway, I had wondered what “Apple Bottom Jeans” were for a long time. Were they a style? Were they a brand? A few months ago I found the brand. But today, I actually read the tag, and discovered: “Apple Bottoms by Nelly”. The artist of the song was singing about his own clothing line!!! That is as bad as the oh-so-fake lines in The Biggest Loser when Bob will tell his players, “Don’t forget your Extra Mint Chewing Gum! Only 1 Calorie and it will help curve your cravings!”.
That’s what this decade is going to be known for. The influx of shameless, “sneaky” advertising.
In other news, Kitty and I needed to find the ladies’ room, and there was this HUGE line. We were afraid it was the restrooms, but then realized it was to ride “The Pink Pig”. I have NO idea what the Pink Pig is, but everyone in Atlanta wanted to ride it! And finally, for the most undeservedly pricey item of the day, this somewhat plain black shirt:But hey! At least it was on sale!!
To demonstrate my shopping prowess cheapness, I would like to say that I left that very store (Saks Fifth Avenue) with the purchase of a shirt for which I paid $15.82.
So now I must leave you for the day so that I can prepare to comfort my husband when he gets back to the hotel from the game. I sincerely hope that the horrible image of my gold lamé outfit hasn’t seared your eyes from it’s nuclear rays.
And this time, we got up and danced with the belly dancers. Well, all of us but Kitty, anyway. (I told her I’d rat her out as her punishment for not joining us.)
I’m trying to decide if I want to subject the three of us to sharing those pictures. . . :)
I always meant to write this post, but then I was reminded of the idea from Stephanie at Red Clay Diaries. Promptly after Steph published her post, BigMama posted one eerily similar. Except not as detailed. I am SURE that she stole the idea from Steph as well. THEN after I had written this post but before I published it, AmyG wrote one too!! Now I’m not normally one to chase after a blogging trend, but since I have been meaning to write this for forever anyway, here goes:
I have three different stat counters that I use on a regular basis to track trends and visitors to my blog. This, of course, is one of the most fun parts of having a blog, since I have an unhealthy obsession with statistics and numbers. Seriously, I should have been a statistician. A good set of numbers to run graphs and reports on (especially in Excel!!) excites me as much as football excites Chris.
One of the more amusing things that you can track is the phrases that people google that lands them on your site. And let me tell you – people will google some weird stuff!!!
Here are some search awards that I would like to hand out:
#1 All-Time Most Popular Search Award: “Toenail Art”, along with over 50 iterations of that search (my favorite being: “What to do with my gross toenail” – they should have a wonderful idea of what to do with them after reading my post!). I literally get multiple hits A DAY of people looking for toenail art. However, I’m thinking that they are looking for dainty little flowers painted on toenails, but of course what they find at my blog is three dimensional art made out my uncle’s huge toenail clipping collection. I often wonder what their reaction is to their find. . .especially the ones that search for “cute toe nail designs” – I have a feeling they might get a bit queasy.
Most Obvious Search Award: “what does the word objectivity mean” – surely there are easier ways to find the answer to that than googling it. Try the dictionary, maybe?? To go along with this one would be “pictures of objectivity”. Exactly how do you photograph a concept?
Most Surprising Search Phenomenon Award: Since I posted stories on them, I have had quite the influx of searches on “shower bugs” and “phlegm in the back of my throat”. Who knew these were such hot topics? I just got one on the phlegm one that was “glue ear and mucinex” – I’m not sure if they got glue in their ear and were hoping that Mucinex would clean it out, or if Mucinex gave them the feeling of having glue in their ear, but it sounds very unpleasant. . .
Also, Chris and I must not have been the only one to disagree about who’s who in the “Red and Yellow, Black and White” song, because I have had several searches land on this one, including “black african and yellow chinese” and “black white yellow people chineses”. I personally love the term “chineses”, although I won’t be using it due to political correctness fears. Oops, I just did, didn’t I?
Most “had to be a PhD student search because it’s so off-the-wall” Search: “day of the gods in subjective lines”. Whatever that means.
The “I was actually helpful!!” Award:“does hairspray kill roaches” . I am especially glad that I was able to directly clear this person’s question up!
And good luck to this person’s search, because I looked in vain for this picture as well when I referenced it in this post: “grease spot on couch from coming to america picture”
The “I am SURE you didn’t find what you were looking for” Award includes: “lydia ely, little goat” and “pregnant braces i am”.
Or maybe those should get the “Were you on drugs when you searched for that?” Award.
And finally, the, please, please, please don’t do that!!! search award goes to: “how to start a dishtowel chain mail“. Nobody needs 36 dishtowels!!!!
Editor’s Addition: Ironically, right after I wrote this, I got another hit from a google search that caught my attention: “Ways to ruin Rachel’s Life”. Nice.
