Greater Story

Trying to stay with the theme of G, also wondering why I ever started this nonsense! What happens if I wanna say something that starts with S, when I am still in the G's?? Thus the way my mind works, must complete what I start, see it through, not leave it undone, just a work in progress.

Went to bible study at church tonight. It's on the Old Testiment, I missed the first 5 weeks because I had Ethos on Mondays, and cub scouts on Tuesdays, adding something on Wednesday would have been crazy. So Alan began with Job tonight. Wow.....ever read it? I mean really read it, seems like I've read bits here and there, but not the whole thing. When God finally responds to Job's crys.....God goes on for chapters, describing how big he is. Amazing! The description in The Message, starting with chapter 38 is freaking amazing to me. I mean Job basically represents all of mankind, and all the suffering we do. And God cared about him. And this was all before Jesus even came onto the scene. The descriptions in those chapters about creation is awesome, it's a new perspective then what's described in Genesis, seems to have more detail. So what did I come away with? Simple really. God cares about little old me. I may think that there are bigger problems God has to conquire, but he still cares about whats going on with me and wants me to spend time with him, even if it's me praying I have time to clean my house, or if it's me praying my kid does well in school, or it's me praying my husband gets enough sleep. And so it Gods...........and and Bob and Larry, oh and Perry would say.....

"God thinks your special and he loves you very much!"

G is for........

Greys Anatomy: Man that show is good. Talk about a guilty pleasure! Dr. Burke is actually kind of sexy, and Patrick Dempsey, I've loved him since "Can't Buy Me Love". I love this show, it's one show I watch all the way through uninterrupted.

God: Much talk about God here. But what can I say, I believe, and it's the reason I breath. Just wish I could hear him. Wish he'd speak louder, or his direction was clearer. Or maybe I need to shut up and listen, and everything would be more clear. Got to hook up with some wiser older women after church today, it was great just to sit and listen, I didn't really have much to say or contribute to the conversation. Not sure why. It was just nice to listen and absorb what they had to say. And to pray with them.

Speaking of God, man we are so fortunate at VCC, we get the amazingly talented singer Kate Miner to come and lead worship like once a year. She is my absolute favorite if I was a talented singer I'd sing like her and command the Holy Spirit to show up just like she does. Check out the link, theres a video on there shot at VCC 3 years ago, it's awesome. My challenge to you is give it a play listen with your eyes closed and worship, you won't be sorry!

Friggin Idiot!

F is for Friggin Idiot!
Ron absolutely hates this movie! I think it's the funniest thing ever!
Here's a little Napoleon Love.

F is for Fode.........

Ha Ha Ha....don't let her fool you she's famous! Just take a look here! Only famous folks have fancy head shots! Oh and a fancy blog with a head shot. See what happens when you deny your famousness?? You show up as the subject of Jodi's blog. So the rest of you better fess up or when I get to the letter that your last name starts with....your name is fair game!
Apparently theres been a small request for the F- BOMB!

F-Bomb: Otherwise the mother of all cuss words. I will not actually spell it out here so as not to offend, but I'll drop it all over the place just to prove my point. It's quite a powerful word, but honestly it's lost it's true meaning I think. I mainly use it to get the point across that I am really pissed off. Or extremely frustrated it flows freely. Yesterday I'd say I dropped it quite a few times. My child ADDness has consumed me this week. The meds are working I saw that last weekend, when he suffered through a 2 hour eye appointment, with no problems. And he was extremely good on the cub scout camp out. But then this week, he was so dang hyper! Granted when I actually see him in the AM he's not medicated, and in the PM it's worn off. Doesn't seem fair that school gets him medicated and I don't. He's all over the place, running from place to place the second his feet hit the floor in the morning. If we go to a store if he's not confined to a cart, he's gone. In a resturant he's in the chair and off constantly, or rolling around the booth. He won't sit still to eat, unless it's fast food (thus the name). I don't like the stimulant medication like what he's on Concerta and Adderall, both stimulants. I actually like the anti-depressant strattera best, because it doesn't have the on/off effect. You can probably tell my frustration, STRESS OUT! So I've said many times this week.........."f-bomb"!
Famous people quit stalking my blog, and comment already!

FAMOUS

F IS FOR FAMOUS

So because I am a scrapper, and I am a celebrity scrapper blog stalker like the rest of the scrappin world. I too did a self portrait photo shoot. Fun fun fun.....I think it's a cool picture, I got a couple cool ones. Ali Edwards made the challenge so like the rest of the scrappin sheep I had to do it. Ahhh yes famous. The scrappin world is full of famous people. I even know a couple. But my peeps know who I know, and the famous folks know who they are, lets not go and name drop right here on my blog. Besides if I really do know famous folks, they will be readers of my blog and they will actually comment. Ok heres what makes you famous. Being published more than twice in a scrappin magazine, being published in a local newspaper at least once a year or so that would make you famous. Theres other ways to be famous. But you people know who you are so just leave me some comments and then everyone will know yes, Jodi knows famous folks, her name dropping is leggit! Now celebrity status is much bigger than famous, and those are the people who have blogs that are amazingly inspiring, and their blog entries get like 50 comments a day. I won't name drop with those folks, because I don't know them, but wow if they are stalkers of my blog, I could then call my obsession leggit. I wouldn't call my blog all that inspiring, funny upon occasion, thought provoking maybe, but I don't think I've reached inspiration, unless you call that big headed picture inspiring. Ha.....Tomorrow I feel a blog coming on about the big F word. Get ready because it should be good!

F is for FREEDOM!

Freedom: Can mean a lot of things. Like my belief in God, gives me freedom from a lot of worry, because I know God will take care of me. What do people who don't beleive do? Do they just worry about crap all day? I can't imagine. Freedom is living in a country where we are free to worship however we see fit. Freedom is having a "listen to you body" day, of which is today, exhaustion and lack of sleep caught up with me so here I am. Gotta have one of those days every once in a while I learned that from my friend Weezer. Thanks Weezer! Creative freedom, I am spending way too much time here, and here, the books they recommend are full of really cool creative fun stuff, I need to have those. Or maybe just one. Live out Loud would be cool. And for photography and inspiring words I go here. Sure glad so many folks are blogging these days, just keeps me at my computer longer. Ha!

Fire: Camp fires are so awesome, warm and they smell so good. Kids sure do love to play in fire. We have taught those littel cubscouts well and no one got burnt, they know if a sticks in the fire it stays in the fire. With camp fires come Smore, gooey sticky yumminess! Oh and we made Banana boats more sticky yumminess.

I promise to do something creative today, and I'll post whatever creation comes out of me. Even if it's a cool recipe.

P-man loving the outdoors!
Doesn't get any cuter than this! He had a blast this weekend, campin out with the cub scouts!

E....humm..how about F?

Haven't I done enough with E already? I think so How about we move on to F, If I think of anymore E's I'll throw them in, no rules it's my blog!

F is for FANTASTIC!

As in fantastic weekend. Work has been annoying, just boring office crap, and politics you'll get it anywhere. So a fantastic weekend was very welcomed. Ron had National Guard this weekend so P-man and I were on our own. Camping with the scouts was our activity of choice. I being the procrastinator extraordinary, I had NOTHING ready to go to leave on Friday after work. Heck by Thursday night I had decided it'd be too cold at night to camp and I wasn't going, by Friday morning I had changed my mind back to going.........can someone say ADD??? Very much! It's no wonder I can get dressed in the morning honestly! I drive myself crazy, but decided after hearing from one person, it's how I operate, and it works out for me time and time again. Why waste valuable vegging, or brainstorming time on planning when you can fly by the seat of your pants at the last minute, and get stuff done in minimal time? I thrive on chaos, I welcome it, it's like a rush, a thrill! Why do you think I stay up so freakin late? All the planning is going on in my head, theres nothing organized about it. Much more creative to just throw things together really it is. So did it work for me this weekend.....yes....yes it did. Me and P, got to the campsite around 8:30 just at dusk, minimal light. Got our tent set up, air mattress and all just before the sun went down! We weren't too cold Fri. night, even though it was 39 degrees, but we had 4 blankets on us. He went right to sleep, so precious. Him waking up on Saturday morning, listening to the birds chirping, he takes a deep breath, eyes closed and says "Mama....I just love the outdoors!" Moments like that make me freezing my arse off all worth every second.

Farting & flatulence: One in the same. But did fart come from the word flatulence? It does happen at our house I'll admit it. Oddly Perry doesn't do much farting. Either that or he just doesn't announce it like most boys would. So polite that kid. Lots of smelly farters in my extended family. Ok why did I go there??? I'm a lady......really I am! Geez what's wrong with you people honestly!

Friends: I've heard many of my friends fart.....wait what's happening? Ha! I'm a lady lets try and remember that!

Friends: I have a great network of friends, each with their own unique gifts as to how they deal with me. No easy task really. I have close friend varying in lengths of time they've known me. Some I feel close to, even though I've not known them as long as other friends. New friendships are fun, when you really click with someone. Those people you feel like you've known for years. You talk to them like they know everything about you, but they don't, which means you get to share stories your old friends have heard many times. Love hangin out with my peeps, I have church peeps, scrappin peeps, old time faithful peeps, and stale peeps left over from Easter, I'll have to remember to give those to Layni, a friend who loves stale peeps!

E IS FOR EXHAUSTED

I am seriously exhausted. And I am not the one working 12+ hour days. That would be my husband. I am just exhausted from life in general. And starting a project at midnight last night. Duh....When the creative juices are flowing I forget the fact that I have a job, that I go to during the day, and a hyperactive kid I have to keep up with at night. It's just when I get in the moment and I have an idea, I have to go with it, because I am afraid it'll be a while when it'll happen again. So then all the sudden it's 3 am and I have to get up in 4 hours. It was worth it though because it turned out cool. I'd show you but the recipient may be a secret blog stalker, so I'll wait so they can be surprised. More about being exhausted. I think it's just running in general. How do people with multiple kids do it? I mean, he's only involved in one thing but add, my mom in a nursing home for rehab on her replaced knee, and running there every other night, and that's enough. Thank goodness I am on break from the one thing I am involved in, because then I wouldn't get any me time. Speaking of the one thing I am involved in, not many folks responded, see Ethos can't you see I really wanna know what people think theres no right or wrong answer it's just what you think. I'll just pray for you if you give the wrong answer that's all....ha ha....fairly harmless right? Ok Ok so I won't pray for you, unless you ask me to, really....I won't, how will you know actually? So leave me comments. Please don't make me beg!

Elephant: Melinda mentioned Elephant. Not really given this animal much thought as my favorite or anything, too big, not cuddly. Although either someone told me this, or I read it somewhere once a long time ago. If you just mouth Elephant slowly for folks who may be reading your lips, it looks like I love you. Not sure what use that info is, maybe if you want someone to think you are saying it but you don't want to, you could just mouth elephant.

Elegant: My friends dad likes to use this word, often when someones, usually a lady or a girl, is dressed all fancy.

Eclectic: Very much my style of decorating.

Earthtone: Very much my color choice for dressing.

Did I mention Exhausted? Yep I am!

EXCELLENT

E is for Excellent!

Lots of excellent things to talk about just from today. First of all this picture, that my brother found in my basement, (my mom used to own this house), brought it upstairs to take home, and well forgot it. Hee Hee...so here it is. My brother Kelly in kindergarten. Wasn't he cute? His little dimples! And my mom made that shirt, painted the tiger on it and everything. I believe the tigers butt is on the back....excellent. Notice his hair over his ears? We went to a baptist school then, and I bet you my mom got a talking to about his hair, boys had to have their hair cut above their ears. I'll talk more later about more excellent things from today.

What else was excellent was the new Jars of Clay CD I hooked myself up with today. It's a must have, all cool reworked old (very old) hymns. Love it! Love Jars of Clay, although I feel like I've abandoned them and missed a lot. Their second album wasn't the greatest, I gave up on them after that, and now sampling some of their stuff on amazon, I feel kind of bad, and feel like I need to catch up. Martin Smith from Delirious sings on one of the songs, as does Sarah Kelly. Love her cool raspy voice. Nothing like some cool Jesus jams to keep you on track!

E is for Ewwwww!

Ewww: The sound one makes when their child does something gross. Case in point on tuesday, Perry had a den meeting. He insisted on wearing his flip flops. When you are in a hurry, it's really not worth it to argue with a child. So I grabbed his gym shoes just incase they were doing track and field or something. We get to cub scouts and he immediately flipped his flip flops off and began running around the room barefoot. Granted he wasn't the only child running around while the Den leader was trying to talk, but sometimes if feels like it. Fast forward to end of meeting time. Perry no flip flops on his feet, the kids are standing in a circle getting ready to play silent ball. They have to be quiet for this game, and oddly enough Perry doesn't do too bad unless he has to catch the ball. Suddenly apparently Perry's left foot must have felt a bit dry. So what would one do if the bottom of their foot was dry and it was not in some sort of footwear??? Well what you do is, while standing on one foot you pull the other foot up to your mouth and you lick the bottom of the dry foot..........:::::sigh:::::::.........What's that? No that's not what you do? Well it's what my kid did. In front of all the onlooking parents. I was speachless at first, then I yelled EWWWW....Perry that is gross. So then he just licks his fingers and wipes them on the bottom of his foot. Equally as gross. Note to self: Footwear that ties and ADD medication is necessary for all Den meetings.

Ethos: A new ministry that I am involved in. Right now it looks very similar to Alpha, but in the fall it will not. Right now we are getting the framework for it and using Alpha material. In the fall we hope to have new curriculum so it looks very different. So what is Ethos you say? Allow me to do a little explaining and advertising for local folks who'd like to come or if you know someone send them we'd love to have them.

Ethos- (noun) The distinctive spirit of a culture or an era.

It's a safe place where folks can come and learn about God and ask any questions they want and hopefully find the answers. The coolest thing about Ethos is it's not at the church, so those who feel intimidated about a church enviroment can feel comfortable. Another super cool part is FREE DINNER at Rileys in Greenhills. So if you wanna check it out and want a free dinner for 5 weeks. It starts April 19th 6:30....call Rileys to register 851-8810 ext 301

Ok a little survey: Anyone is encouraged to answer this, whether you are a believer or not. Or even if you know folks who aren't believers, and you know what they are thinking. (like it's been discussed) What keeps you from knowing God better? What keeps you from becoming a follower of Jesus Christ? Or if you believe you are a follower, what keeps you from going to church on a regular basis (like every sunday)? If you are a believer, and do attend church on a regular basis, what keeps you from allowing others to know you are a believer? If you fall into any of those questions I welcome your response. If you know me, and don't want me to know who you are feel free to answer anonymously.

D is for Delightful.....which kids are in our magnolia tree on a lovely spring afternoon.

How so very glad we are that spring is finally here! You know it's spring when the blooms on our magnolia tree finally bust open. The kids sort of cooperated and let me take some fun pictures. Harolds has brought Maddie and Ashton over the past 2 days to play at the park with Perry, he's had a blast.

Drugs: Which my mom is enjoying after her knee replacement surgery this morning. It's a wierd human ritual, when a family member has surgery, one must go and sit in a waiting room full of other people waiting while someone is getting operated on. The wait is usually intensely long if it's a major procedure. This is a good time to people watch, which is what I've done in the past, however modern technology has allowed me to do other things with my time. My brother loaned me his portable DVD player it's really small, smaller than a lap top. Perfect to lounge on a vinyl hospital couch, and sit it right on your lap. I watched the Pianist, I just think Adriene Brody is dreamy. I must have a thing for guys who have a big nose. He was really good in The Village too. Something about his hair and his eyes I think. I watched most of it. Those of you keeping track via my blog. My mom is just fine, not in a persistant vegitative state, so there was no need for any big decisions on my part. Ahhhh....I told myself I wasn't going to go there. For the record I made sure she told me what I was to do in front of her pastor so I had a witness....geez why didn't she write that stuff down? People write it down! Sign it date it and put it on file at all area hospitals!

I promise to start doing E's tomorrow. So if you got some D stuff you wanna chime in on, now is the time!

D is for.........DREADLOCKS!
oh my that kind of makes me laugh. I say dreadlocks because, I just got a few new CD's, I am on a CD buying frenzy. But one of them was the John Butler Trio, and the lead singer has dreadlocks. Very cool. I had a friend in college that I worked with at Kings Island, Buffy, she had dreadlocks. Her dreadlocks were good and dready (is that a word), around the time I got married. She came to the wedding. My super conservative family didn't know what to think. One of my Aunts said...."who was the girl with the cocoons in her hair?" Ha Ha....

Disciple: Dave gave a good message on being a disciple this weekend. Something from the message that stuck out for me was how when you are really going through some stuff, and God just seems so distant. Like you know he's there, but he's not all up in the business like you gotta look hard for him. It's like he don't wanna make it easy, he wants you to pursue him, he wants you to seek him out. Sometimes don't you wish it was just freakin EASY? You're like ok this sucks, um God where are you? You see him, like very distant, like a shadowy figure....ok it's coming to me now. He desires for you to come to him a little closer, and then that is when he won't seem so shadowy, but very clear. I think that made sense, it just came to me as I was typing. I guess that's what makes a disciple? Some one who seeks to see God clearly.

Discipline: Much like the word disciple in looks only. Ah yes the dreaded discipline, nasty word. Especially when you have a kid who doesn't respond to it. He's not too terribly bad, but in a group setting like cub scouts it's insane. Granted he's not been on any meds the past 2 days, because we ran out, and the doctor was out, plus we changed his meds. So he's been off the hook. I don't even want to know what's going on at school. The only one I've heard from was his reading teacher who has him literally for an hour each day, so you know he's off the hook if she's communicating with me that he's out of control. Just like the book Driven to Distraction, being ADD is like being driven by a motor that never stops. Or it's like a gift that's really hard to open. The hard to open part is no joke. Perry is so hard to figure out, he's so inconsistent. One minute he's present and with you and you can converse with him and ask questions, the next minute he's bouncing off the wall and you can't even talk to him. Soooo frustrating. I pray that God allows us to open this gift, and that he's able to control his gift to use it to his advantage. God is quite distant in this stuff that's for sure.

D is for DOG!

DEFENESTRATE: (verb) the act of throwing/being thrown out of a window, usually a high one.
This is on my friend Stacie's blog. I've never heard that word spoken before in my whole life. Although thought about doing it with a xerox machine almost on a daily basis at my job. Possibly my computer upon occasion but not too often. Mostly the xerox machine. (thanks Stacie I was desperate for some material.)

Drugs: My cousin mentioned this. I am not in need of any drugs, other than something to make me not feel so blah, maybe something that would make me feel excited about cleaning my house. Drugs also make me think of my poor kid who takes drugs for ADD, he's on strattera only right now, and during spring break he had more good days than bad. Got emotional occasionally, but for the most part seemed ok. But it'll be a whole different story once he gets back to school, and is in a very structured enviroment. UGH.....He's very smart and gifted, draws very well for his age. Amazingly well actually. For as little as he pays attention, he's learned quite a lot if you asked me. Hopefully he'll be able to stay in a regular classroom for next year. He does need a lot of extra help. In a regular classroom they can't provide all the help he needs. Who knows maybe he'll switch meds and he'll be fine, and able to focus, and become a model student. We shall see. Very stressful.

Dishes: Ask anyone I HATE DOING DISHES! My friends know this about me. Its probably discussed in a great deal of length when I am not around. "Why does Jodi not own a dish washer as much as she hates doing the dishes?" In all my years of living on my own and being in charge of my own life, I have never had a dishwasher. Odd, I don't have anything against dishwashers, I've just never had the good fortune of owning one. Well everyone can now do a happy dance....we hooked ourselves up and here it is.
D is for DISHWASHER, so now stop talking about me! Check out item number DWD1500AWW
That's the one we got. An off bran made by maytag.