Remember

As you go to sleep tonight remember some special people in your prayers:

Our women and men in the service

The people they fight to protect

The people they fight against (God doesn't want them to perish eternally)

The children of this world... ALL the children

Their parents

The sick

The hungry

The lonely

The different

The teachers

Their students

The leaders of every nation, big or small

The followers in every nation, every single one

The single mom in line at the grocer's next to you

The elderly gentleman who waved at your kids

The server at McDonald's

The market vendor in Asia

The brothers and sisters in Christ who risk it all to share the gospel

The brothers and sisters who choose not to...

Which one are you?

From Under the Rock

Well, I  am currently hiding under a rock, or at least wish I was; the Hub had a Freak Out over the financial crisis Thursday, and we all spent the weekend treating our ulcers!  He's not one to Freak Out, but everyone is alloted a certain number of Freak Outs, and He's officially used one; we survived the blast.  Still smokin' though.

So, Saturday, I slipped into one of my beloved nursing bras (have 8 month old, remember?); and it felt odd.  I couldn't quite place my finger on it until I looked in the mirror, and was greeted by the leaning boobs of Pisa!  It seems that one of the underwires (the left cup) has gone AWOL!!!  How is that possible?  It isn't in the washer or dryer, or the drawer, or laundry basket, or the bra.  So where did it go?

Several months ago I experienced the phenomenon of the broken underwire - twice!!! - causing me to explore and coin the word "bodacity" in reference to my bossom.  This has, sadly, not always been the case; nor will it last, I fear.  I expect the Great Exodus when I finish nursing #4 (envision the Israelites leaving Egypt).  But for now, I am cursed with the repercussions of the BIg Busted Gal, as well as the oddities, such as the Disappearing Underwire.

I am still looking for the underwire, and hope to find it before my son does and takes it to school as a boomerang... this could get embarrassing.

More Dog Death Dreams

TOnight as I snacked on a delicious, yet not quite up to the par of my usual Pink Lady Apple, Braeburn apple, I was seized with the incredible desire to strangle the beagle, Devil Dog.  It could be that she was baying uncontrollably in the dark backyard at some poor sweet bunny - for 20 minutes straight. Doesn't her throat get sore?  Now, I know some of you want to call the SPCA, and I say go ahead, cause they will find well cared for loved-by-my-children animals; I love the hammies.  We do take excellent care of our canines, and thus they are still alive!!!

I used to love my dog (Satan Incarnate), but time and his aging process have made it possible for me to pray again tonight that he will go quietly to the great food bowl in the sky!  As for Annie, if we get rid of her, the Masses will want a puppy, and I just got new carpet in this house so we can sell it in about a year... you see my dilemna.  I anticipate that I will someday love dogs again, just not THESE dogs!

But, the Hub has just sneaked in here and asked me to do something about Annie, as she is on a bark-a-thon again - seriously - dry mouth? sore throat? hoarseness?  Oh, I'd like to do something about her, alright!

And, on a side note, I want to make the point that, yes, I do have a birthday approaching; no, it is not anything special (bunch of nosey Nellies!); no, I will not tell you my exact age.  Why should you care? So you can make fun of me? Say things like: "My doesn't she look good for (insert number here)?"  or "how much surgery do you think she's had to be looking that good at her age?" or "you're older than I am!!!" I do not particularly enjoy birthday festivities in my honor, unless #1 (who has a definite future in party planning) plans it. And no, you can not use my daughter to plan me a party - I hate surprises, unless they are diamond-age, and then I still would rather not have it as a surprise. I think I should be celebrated EVERY STINKIN' DAY BECAUSE I AM FABULOUS!!!!!  But just in case any of you darling friends of mine think it would be funny to prank me, with say, an ad in the paper????

I will avenge myself. Period. Be afraid.  I spare no expense on revenge.  You have been warned.  More like promised. I. Mean. It.  That includes you Kaci, Tigo, Jen, Debbie, Jeanne, Kelly, JuJu... I'll have to add the rest later!

JUST ASK JEN- I DO NOT LIKE SURPRISES!!!!!!  I SERIOUSLY TRY TO PEEK AT THE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS!!! I AM NOT A SURPRISE LOVIN' KINDA GAL AT ALL!!!!!

WHAT DO I WANT FOR MY BIRTHDAY?  Time with my friends, of course!!!  To eat, drink (Diet Coke, duh), and be merry croppin'!!!  I am happy that I get older every year, because the alternative is not in my plans for a while, amy the Lord will it so.  But I'd like to focus more on the "aren't I lucky to be so blessed with all these great people and a fab family" than the count the gray hairs and crows feet (not really a hit party game, know what I mean?). 

AND IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MY AGE?  You'll have to buy me diamonds!!!!!

On the Subject of the Eternity Planning for the Dog

I often fantasize of ways to kill Satan Incarnate;  my current involves spontaneous combustion. His, not mine.  It's a glorious day, when all of the sudden, all his barking and fussing at me causes him to swell up like an overgrown toad, or a very very pregnant lady in the heat of late August, and he just... EXPLODES!!!!  then I wake up.  It's just a fantasy.  Darn.

I am not a really graphic person, nor a hateful person, or a vengeful person;  but the dog is bringing out the worst in me tonight (OK, every night... every moment... of every day).  I mean, if I was mean and hateful, I lure the half-blind, mostly deaf old arthritic leaky pup into the road at rush hour... and I have thought of it, but I'd be too guilt ridden for all eternity.  I don't want him to hurt.  So, I pray every night that he'll just go to sleep and go quietly to heaven, just drift off peacefully in his sleep.

And every morning I wake up and he's still here.

I'm doing penance for something!!!  I've had multiple offers to 'take care of him', and several from the Hub, but so far I haven't put out a contract on him... yet... not today... golly, am I tempted!

So, until then, I am left changing his homemade diaper, and taking some comfort that he's miserably humiliated in it, and therefore I am compensated somewhat for all the misery he's caused us.  Nothing like a little payback - hey, I'll take what I can get!!!

JELLO

I know, I know, you're wondering what I could possibly say about this 'wiggly, jiggly' concoction that frequents soooo many of our holiday tables in various and assorted salads.  But I can say so much, really!

Today, I risked my gastronomical health by dining at the home of MILLIE, who is a truly delightful woman and beyond fab grandma;  the cooking thing may have passed its heyday for her. On many such occasions, I have eaten a meal at her house featuring multiple starches and the ever-anticipated jello salad (or just jello).  Who knew one could do so much with Jello?  Certainly NOT the makers of the stuff - they are creative, but I'm here to tell you they do not hold a candle to MILLIE!!!  She has concocted her OWN DISH: "Yum - Yum".  This is whipped Jello. No fooling.  It tastes like air, which isn't necessarily a desired culinary goal.  I am not sure why she has become so creative with Jello; it could be all the years of meal prep, but the food industry has exploded in my lifetime alone to provide creative kitchen opportunities.  It could be that she gets a wild hair every now and then to work in a test kitchen... so hers has become just that.  We are the lab rats.

I dread the invitation that begins with:" I've gotten a notion to do some cooking, and I tried this new recipe...", because it invariably concludes with:"I modified it, or I tweaked it, or I substituted...". BUt, the absolute worst is when she says:" I'm doing a little experiment, or I came up with...".  Take your Prevacid and Tums!

She's experimental in other ways, too.  I give her applause for her creativity!  She's ambitious in her ideas!  And, she has a fetish with freezing.  The Hub has a fetish with pickles, I have a fetish with Diet Coke.  I fault her not for her fetishes.  I fault her for freezing!!!  There is a moratorium of some sorts somewhere on how much and what can be frozen and for how long!!!!  How do we get a copy?  Seriously, when you can't tell what the food substance is anymore, skip the defrost and toss!!!!  If it's been in there for over 6 months, you obviously didn't like it enough to want it to begin with!  You probably won't like it the second time around!!!

True, I have made Turkey day dressing in a double batch and frozen one for CHristmas, which is about a month away... a month, get it?  About thirty days, little more, little less.  Hint. Hint.

I know, I know, you think: could jello really have sent her into such a tizzy?  Well, it's more of a train-of-thought thing than a tizzy, and yes.  Why?  Well, in my lifetime of family holiday tables, I've eaten Jello with cottage cheese, without cottage cheese, with fruit, without fruit, with nuts, without nuts, with whipped topping, without whipped topping, with cheese, without cheese, with grated carrots, without grated carrots... but today I ate jello in a way I have never tried.  I've eaten every available color of jello ever made concocted into some wiggly dessert or 'handed down from generation to generation' salad - grandma would be proud!  I have never eaten what I did today.

I ATE ORANGE JELLO WITH CHOPPED CELERY IN IT.  SERVED WITH THE OPTIONAL SIDE OF MAYO. 

YES, MAYO.

I PASSED ON THE MAYO.

Addendum

Please include: Grand Caymans, and St. Lucia. HA!

The Homebody

Tonight the Hub made a grave error.  He called me a 'homebody'; which, I am not. Homebodies have not traveled to Greece, Turkey, Jamaica, Mexico, France, and Italy.  They do not plan to go to Germany (was a slight possibility, now a bigger one!) next summer.  They do not travel in the US, even. They stay at home.  I'd like to be home more than I am, 'cause, frankly, I have a scrapbook room that needs some work, you know what I mean?  I have four children (my full time job), and the Hub (the OTHER full time job), six dwarf hamsters and two dogs;  I do not stay home!

All this came about because I went to pay my cell phone bill b/c Homeslice Hub hasn't done it, and they are now sending threatening messages via my phone;  once there, I discovered this nifty Blackberry phone that I thought would be truly GREAT for my birthday - I am obviously wrong (according to some sources, who shall remain unnamed for now, but we know who I am talking about). FYI: he has a tendency to pay bills once a month, and therefore, we have most on auto-draft as he tends to be late (oh, how I have had to rescue us with the gas/water/electric co. at my door b/c he forgot to pay the bill - yes, we have the money; he doesn't have the time - pokerstars is a demanding mistress; so is politics).

Back to the story: the Hub, I thought teasingly, told me I didn't need to hook up to the internet in my car - we have it right here at home.  We exchanged witty banter which came to an abrupt screeching halt when he said I was a homebody, and I didn't need to text or email while driving (OK, any idiot knows that is NOT a good idea... DUH!  And though I am exceptionally skilled, I value my life and that of my children - the Hub's insinuation that I would do that... absurd!)!  This he meant. The homebody thing.

Apparently, I don't look like just any idiot, but one that needs this explained. Thanks.  But, I can overlook that, because he's a fool in his own right, but the homebody comment... that means war.  

So, I got to thinking (about ways to off him in his sleep... one eye open, buddy, one eye open) about my role as a stay at home mom - one which I feel particularly blessed to have (seriously).  And I began to wonder if the fact that I often (always) put aside my own agenda for the good of my family and kids is really beneficial to them?  Do they see this self-sacrifice as a strength (like I do), or a weakness (like the Hub must)?  I always thought that with the Hub's inability to be available b/c of his job, that I had to schedule things either conveniently for him, or hire a sitter, or rely on help from the G's, that I was doing my job as a mom, even when it meant saying no to myself.

But am I teaching my kids, and the Hub that I don't matter?  Will they come away seeing that I love what I do, and give up things for them as a choice that I make from LOVE?  Or will they think I'm weak?  Will the Hub look at my sacrifice and think: "What about her dreams?"

 I think about my hopes and dreams, personal accomplishments and agendas, and I wonder if it's time to take them off the back burner.  Maybe it's time to turn up the heat on some of my projects, and see how the Hub handles it.  It requires much more from him than I think he understands, for me to want more for 'me'.  Less for 'him'.  

The question isn't whether or not I am a homebody; anyone with kids would tell you the days of June Cleaver are long gone, sister!   I do enjoy being at home, relaxing, being in 'my space' - and I should.  He enjoys it too!!!  The real QUESTION: can he take the heat?