My Brothers Fault....

For real. I can talk about sunshine, roses and worship music, and how God bless's me. And then become completely obsessed with a Korn song. I won't be linking them because it could very well be devil music for all I know. Very much headbanging music. This song Shoots and Ladders is off she shizzel...and dude has this super cool voice, and theres this cool bagpipe action at the beginning. And the drums, well they got a super cool beat going on. And he smashes all these nursery rhymes together as if that's the way they were meant to be. Back in the day we would have totally been cranking some Korn in the car, in the drive-thru of Burger King late at night. Doing some kind of headbanging dance, while the drive-thru worker looked on in disbelief. Who's up for some latenight drive-thru dancing, I got the ipod....come pick me up!

Weather Talk....

Ok theres a strict rule in blogland, well at least in my own head anyways...no weather talk unless it's extreme. Here's extreme...........IT'S SPRING FINALLY..........Thank the good Lord, time to roll out the flip flops and wear crocs with no socks. Is there a flip flop dance? There needs to be.

In other not so happy news: Best friend from high school's father passed away on tuesday. Services were on Wednesday, and funeral was this morning. I found out, today at 5pm, much to my shock. Husbands (work together) do not relay information well at all. We've not been that close for years, different interests, different lives, it happens. Theres still some contact, though. I hate that I wasn't there for her in this time. She's attended the funerals of my grandparents, and been there for me, I feel absolutely horrible. I cried, husband felt bad, but I can't completely blame him, us not being in touch can be to blamed as well. Had we been in touch I would have known he had been sick or something. Crap it just freakin sucks. I'll make a super lovely card this weekend and give her a call soon, I'm sure things are a bit crazy right now. And right now I talk about some memories. I'd say in high school he took a hand in my spiritual growth, he was a baptist minister, but we had different views on many things. He felt women should never be ministers of the gospel, I disagreed, and still do. We'd discuss different rules in the baptist church like no dancing, all these discussions led me to dig deeper in the word and come up with what I would believe to be the truth. Holly (my friend) and I once sang "To God be the Glory" in his store front church. He made Holly have a bumper sticker on her car in high school that read "If you died to night, where would you end up?" It was bright yellow with black letters. Lightning struck a tree, and it completely smashed that car. That was a fun time in my life oh so long ago, sorry I wasn't there for my friend. Ha, the only photo's I have of Holly and I are from back in the day, I think theres one of us floating around on New Years Eve a few years ago, but we both look dreadful. These are funnier anyways. Excuse the scans. Good Lord This first photo is from Junior Prom, in 1986, Holly's mom made her Scarlet O'Hara Dress....very pretty. Mine was made by an elderly neighborlady, I picked out the horrible lime green material, and another neighbor let me use her fake rabbit fur coat. UGH.....worst prom ever. My date was a fix up, God knows I wasn't going to score a date with my dorky self. He was a big jerk, and was cropped out of the photo. This other photo I am looking exceptionally dorky with my Guess overalls, a must have in 1986, and both of us in the color peach. Hold up, that's a layered look I was going for, with 2 "Outback Red" 10 button shirts, under the Guess Overalls. I do believe Holly is sporting a Forenza sweater. We were oh so trendy. Ok don't even try to discuss my hair, (it's a bob, and spiked on top???), oh and those huge glass's. Fun Memories, I miss those carefree days.

Prayer

Interesting thing happened during a huddle on Sunday. Huddle= leader meeting in vineyard terms. Someone shared about praying with confidence. And not just ask God for things, like a whole bunch of "I wants", those are kind of lame anyways, but if we know it's something that God might grant us, say like financial freedom, or healing or, someone to have a good God encounter, we don't just ask but we thank God for it already happening. Yeah I know sounds kind of nutty. I'm not saying, you should be all like ......"thanks God for hooking me up with a million dollars.", that's just freakin arrogant. You get what I'm saying, and there was actually a verse that went along with it, but I'm lame and can't remember it, so if any bible scholars are reading this leave the verse in the comments. So I tested it out, and wasn't even really thinking about it, I was just casually praying. Casually, meaning just doing my routinely lame praying in the car. I wasn't all on my face in the prescence of the Holy spirit praying I was just chillin in my car chatting. That's it. I just basically said, thanks God for taking away my worrys about our finances. That was it and I didn't give it another thought. Seriously what happened over the next few days was a little painful for me but nothing short of a miracle. My husband began to budget our money. Yes, I too was in complete shock. Not only did he budget he's got a plan that's going to last well into the summer that will give us a nice cushion so that we ain't broke all the time. Now heres the painful part. I get $20 a week for spending money. GASP.....So I am thinking of all sorts of ways to scam money. Like shopping at Aldi's for groceries which means whatever I save on groceries is mine to keep, and that means extra spending money. Except folks at Aldi's are a little bit scary. Seriously I'm not a snob, but sometimes folks can be scary. But heck 25 cents for a can of greenbeans, might be worth some scary folks. Ha! I'm totally kidding I ain't that broke. I've been there, and sometimes namebrand foods is just necessary! Oh so back to the reason for all the money nonsense.....that was from a teeny tiny prayer. I've been married for 15 years and this is the first time he's ever taken an interest in our finances. Hummm.....something happend....it's called DIVINE INTERVENTION. No telling what could happen if I fasted along with my teeny tiny prayer.

Heart for the Poor?

Me really? I don't get it. I've not had this feeling before. Am I being brain washed or is God really and truly breaking my heart? So I ended up in Church by myself this morning. It's the end of the Mercy Me series. Dave started talking about the Mt. Airy Mens Shelter, and Proverbs 31:30 Ministry both homeless shelters in my city. Many volunteers from my church provide transportation for these men and women to attend our church on Saturday night. So Dave said this past Saturday night at the beginning of his message he honored these men and women just by saying that to us they are more important than if the president of the united states was visiting. He had them stand up as he told them this, and that God had so much in store for them, to not give up. Something so so very small, and just words.....but to them...full of hope. Imagine being one of those people, whose lives have taken a bad turn and they find themselves homeless, and in front of thousands of regular folk, someone heaps a whole bunch of hope on you, and to know that a good percentage of those thousands in attendence in that moment were probably praying for you.....wow! So needless to say I cried a great deal (like now) at church today. Why? I guess because God is preparing me for that next step in this spiritual adventure. What that looks like? I have no idea, but I reminded over and over again of the verse:

1 Samuel 14:7 "Do all that you have in mind....go ahead, I am with you heart and soul."

So I continue to surround myself with people who will have my back. Can't wait to see what God has in store for me. Are you one of those people? Will you have my back? I'm just saying.....

Cleaning Again...

Does one ever get to not clean? I guess when you are loaded and you can hire a house keeper then your cleaning is less, but I would gather that even those who have house keepers still clean right? Man I hate cleaning. Found a pile of returned christmas cards. Which kind of annoys me. Like When we moved we sent out "we moved" notes within our christmas cards. We moved officially in October so a Christmas card seemed a logical choice. So why can't other folks send out we moved cards? Unless they don't want to be found which stinks. This year I've lost cousins, uncles, and friends into the postal abis. Can't say I didn't make some effort to find them, but if they don't want to be found then what's a girl to do? Guess I did my part now it's up to them. So if you are related to me, and you've moved and didn't get a Christmas card how about you send me something with a new address that'd be great. Off to clean something....probably paper scraps from my floor all over my house. He's a crazy, humming, scissor carrying maniac, and I love him!

End of Alpha

Always a bummer, but it's still bitter sweet. My tuesdays will be freed up till fall, so I'll be a cubscout Mom again. It's kind of good because then it gets me ready for spring and then summer without having to go to Alpha. I'll miss my table folks though, all very interesting and dynamic. Good to talk to Tom at the end about our experiences in different leadership roles and how God led us to that point. Good stuff, seems that I do not seek out leadership roles, ever, God just seems to lead me to them, and somehow while doing them I inadvertently bless some folks in the process of leadership. Is that what it means to serve God, do stuff you just naturally do anyways, and while doing so folks seem to get blessed. Must mean I'm doing what God wants me to do without really trying really. Theres something to that whole process. I think I might be on to something. I'm at mom's on her computer....dial up.....could be days before this entry gets loaded up. What with old folks and dial up anyways? Pray I can get my internet up and running by the weekend so I don't lose my dang mind.

Technology

Internet down at home. Pray that it won't be long, since I need new podcasts like right now. Some things in life just make me happy, music and podcasts are 2 of them. Oh and happy freakin spring with 4 inches of snow on the ground......enough already!

Good God Stuff

Bono seems to keep popping up in my life. He showed up today at church in part of a speech before Dave gave the message at church. I watched the whole speech. Many say that it was prophetic, I'd have to agree. It's freakin brilliant. Bono saying what is in a lot of peoples heads, is very cool. Bono quoting scripture from Leviticus, Isaiah, and Luke, seems just so awesome to me. Makes me glad I went downtown to serve folks who are less fortunate than me on my birthday. That's not something I'd normally do. I do an outreach maybe once or twice a year and usually around the holidays. I look at it as I serve folks I come in direct contact with everyday. Serving strangers a few times a year is an added bonus. Seems my encounter at the wedding last week sort of indirectly prepared me for what I would encounter downtown this weekend. I guess so that it wouldn't seem so foreign to me. And interesting how all this stuff that is taking me out of my comfort zone is all happening during a time that Dave is doing a series on the poor at church. It's almost as if God really does know what he's doing. So how it all this ties into Perry possibly going to a special school next year provided we can afford it and why I keep thinking about 1 Samuel 14:7, that's the part I'm still trying to figure out, but it seems like it's all trying to work together. It'll be interested to see how things turn out. One of the many cool things Bono said in his prophetic speech, was "instead of always asking God to bless what you are doing, get involved in what God is doing, because it's already blessed."
I urge you to watch the whole speech by Bono, you won't be sorry, it's very enlightening. Ecspecially the part about "Religion often getting in the way of God." Love that!

EXHAUSTED!!

Ever been so tired you can't even sleep? I've reached that point. Worked for 2 hours today (mind you I never work on the weekends, how do people do it?) Then I went to Proverbs 31:30 ministry downtown and taught some women who go to this shelter how to make bookmarks. Then we all ate a meal together. Cool experience, many of the women lived at the drop in center, some possibly on the street, just come and hang out at this shelter a couple women from my church run on Saturdays. God bless's the work they do there and it was fun to share with these women, and serve them. So from there we went to dinner for my birthday, and after that Perry and I went to a lock-in at the Y, because I'm just that crazy.
Got some cool pool pictures though. I love pool pictures, something about the color of the water, and maybe the super cute kid. Interesting as we were leaving the Y after the Lock-In, there was a sign by the door, the cornerstone of the building that said Established in 1969....ha....funny so was I.

Groupie!

Sometimes you just gotta know who to talk to! Or just have cool friends with super cool connections. I scored a VIP pass to the show Extreme Makeovers Home Edition. Yeah that's right you heard me, home of a Mr. Ty Pennington! He let me take this here photo while he took a break from shooting. Reluctantly I took the photo of his shirtless self, holding a power tool. Many of you who know when I went will recall that the house was done when I got there so you'll probably out me in my big fat lie, so yeah I didn't take this photo, but it is fun to look at don't you think. Kelly and I went to Sunrise, KY with out VIP pass's excited about all that we had to look forward to. A white tent full of design team talent, shrimp cocktale, time to converse with the design team about deep topics, just to get the oppurtunity to rub elbows with someone famous, was all we wanted. Yeah that was a crazy picture. After a crazy trip on some backwoods crazy roads in Kentucky, we get to our destination, Claysville Church, where we were suppose to catch a shuttle to take up to the house. We pass through one security check, on to another. Security check #2 was a security guard who has a surprising resemblence and deminor to Flavor Flav, seriously he talked just like him not quite as wacked, but loud and crazy. So Flavor Flav told us they weren't running anymore shuttles for VIP's, and we'd have to come back tomorrow........DO WHAT?.....Kelly told lie number 1 right about now, "uh....we drove all the way from Dayton, Oh, and we can't go up?" DAYTON, OH??? LOL.....Dayton is only like 20 minutes farther than Cincinnati, why use Dayton as a lie, Cleveland would have been more pitiful! He insisted that we had to go. So hanging our heads he headed back the scary blair witch project roads back to the big city. But then we remember passing the road that led to the house it was blocked off. I suggested lets play dumb, flash the VIP's and see what it gets us. We encountered yet another not too bright security dude, who said...."uhhhh....last I heard about that you had to go up to the church and catch a shuttle......" Damn-it! I was like "what we can't just drive up there? He's like "uhhhh...NO...", so we headed up the road.....then I was like wait a minute we can't give up that easy. I said to Kelly what if we came into the church the backway.....(a gravel road we exited on) which had no security. Park our car, slide into the long line that already existed....he'll never know. Kelly had a scarf, I had a knit hat I could put on, we'll have disguises.....LOL....it's a plan. Pass up the church right pass all security check points, slide in the back way, parked our car walked up to the VIP tent and stood in front of it like we belonged avoiding eye contact with Flavor Flav. Stood next to some lovely ladies, who were wearing the famous blue shirts. They said we're volunteers. Kelly's like how did you get to volunteer? They were like we just went into the tent and said we want to volunteer. We were like OK! Walked in said nothing about the VIP at first, just said "we're Volunteers", the girl was like "oh are y'all caterers?".....we both went....."Yep!", she handed us a blue shirt, press releases to sign, we then mention the VIP, she said oh well you can't be both so I'll give you your badges just don't wear them on the outside of the blue shirt. SCORE! Crap I hope they don't expect the caterer's to have food. LOL.....we got right on the shuttle....went right up to the house got dropped off. Went in the volunteer tent to get our assignment. Right away we were instructed to take 40 meals to the house from the Olive Garden Tent to feed the workers who were AT THE HOUSE, who hadn't eaten in 15 hours. We got escorted to the Olive Garden Tent and handed off to someone else. Once we got on the road to the house area, we were completely free to roam the worksite no questions asked. Holy crap. We did get the food and take it directly to the FRONT PORCH OF THE HOUSE. To which Ty was right behind the door. After we delivered the food, we hung out on the walkway in the front yard watching Ty shoot some scenes inside the house. Everyone was standing around waiting to MOVE IN FURNITURE. Are you kidding me? But once the Pottery Barn truck rolled up, the production assistant said Maggie had hand picked volunteers for moving in the furniture. Oh well, but we hung out and watched them lay the sod, was asked if we'd like to help...but we didn't want to get dirty. If we weren't responsible adults with jobs and true groupies we could have hung out all night into the morning for the reveal. But at 10:30 pm, we decided we'd had a good enough experience, heck we scored a T-shirt.....we better get back. We got to see Preston, Paige, and Ed (the english dude, I think it's Ed)...oh and Ty....hubba hubba...he had his megaphone. There were signs all over saying "no photographs", once I felt we had a sufficent experience I started taking pictures. I figured if we got kicked out we had a good experience. No one said anything. I was a little afraid to take photo's of Ty. It was so much fun being a groupie, we had a blast. Had we not encounted the right people we wouldn't have made it as far as we did we were totally lucky because security was pretty tight. We just happened to encounter a guy who was willing to work some magic for us. What fun being paparrazzi!

Deep Thoughts

Was listening to the Mosaic podcast today, as I often do on Monday. I get a little Erwin at least once a week. He's so dynamic and so profound, it's like he's talking about a connection with God, but in a way that isn't overwhelming, just that there's a God, and so therefor this is how we should live our lives. Today he was talking about Jonathan in 2 Samual 14, and about Samuels Armor barrier. Just how well the armor barrier would have had to know him. And that they invested into each others lives, they knew each others junk and in spite of that built each other up to continue to face battle after battle. Good stuff!

" You need to begin to ask yourself who in your life are you investing in? That in that critical moment, that moment where you need help, that moment you need others to join you in the adventure that God is calling you into. Who would look at you and say......?" Erwin McManus

"Do all that you have in mind......I am with you heart and soul." 1 Samuel 14:7

I think after I Walk on Water, it's a good possibility I'll need to Chase some Daylight. And while I am doing that I will also be experiencing, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus. I am being forced to read like never before, and it's all good stuff.

Shoes???

Ok so my husband is giddy with excitment because he's on vacation all week, and theres a good possibility a week or so after his vacation he'll be going to day shift. DAY SHIFT?? Holy crap life as I once knew it is soon to be over. He's been on night shift for 10-12 years! I'll have to share the bed, I've been sleeping alone all these years and now? We'll need to get us a king size bed so it'll still seem like I'm sleeping alone. LOL It's actually a really good thing. It'll be a chance at a normal life. My house might actually get cleaned. He's already started. Last week he did the computer room which had become a catch all when we cleaned the rest of the house, that and our bedroom. Today, while I was out with my dad birthday shopping he started on the bedroom, and found shoes I ain't seen in like 2 years. I do wear all these shoes, at least I did when I knew where they were 2 years ago. With a hardwood floor things get pushed around so easily. So they slide further and further under the bed till you forget they even exist. I forgot how cute those pink flip flops were. Just in time for spring.

Upwards Basketball

The season has come to a close, with a fabulous awards ceremony at Fairfield High Schools Arena. What a fabulous Basketball program. A lot of hardwork goes into making this program a success.

The coaches did a great job teaching the boys sportsmanship and what it means to be Christlike. They had a speaker, Terry (Lewis I think) used to play for the Bearcats, during their final four days. He gave a great talk that was beneficial to the kids and the adults. The boys got a certificate, a coin, and a basketball.

Ron and I then went to his friend from works wedding reception. I am going to attempt to describe the experience without sounding like a snob.....ok....lemme see...Someone did comment the other day that they like my blog because I am raw and honest. WARNING: I AM NOW GOING TO BE RAW AND HONEST, AND I SWEAR TO YOU I AM NOT A SNOB.

I would not consider myself classy. Not at all, I mean I've been in my fair share of 8 weddings, including my own. All of which were fairly fancy affairs, probably the least classy wedding I was in was the one that had the reception at the VFW, and everyone got liquor'd up on Jagermeister, and many ended up going home with strangers, (ok so the last part was a bit of an exaggeration), however that was probably the most fun wedding, since it was all our college friends. Last year we got invited to 2 weddings both of which were fancy affairs, one of which could have been on TLC's a wedding story. Ice carvings, shimp cocktail bar, good food....nice dancing, place cards.....you get the picture. Heck we had a pretty fancy affair ourselves. So why is it this year....well....not so fancy. There was the wedding just before Christmas, where apparently leather was the dress code and no one told us. Then today, I'm not sure what was going on. This reception was at his friends house that he rents in Hamilton as in Lindenwald...(locals will know what I'm talking about) Beer, and Big K pop were the beverages of choice at this fancy affair, iced down in beat the hell up coolers, help yourself cake....meaning cut it your damn self, a bride who was yelling at her kids and at one point called one of them a crackhead......and Ron asked, "Why didn't we bring Perry?" I think he was serious. All that being said, Ron was the only friend from work who show'd up. Sad but true. Now granted it wasn't the most comfortable I've been at a reception, (this seems to be the trend lately) But if I have to endure 45 minutes of WAY out of my comfort zone type people to show a friend I got their back well I'm going to do it. Ron and I had a good discussion about it when we left to go to Starbucks (cause dude owe'd me after that nightmare). He said it kinda sucked that no one from work came, and he had considered not going too. But was glad he went. After thinking about it, I was glad we went too. I mean they ain't my people, and I doubt we'll be hanging anytime soon. But I know it meant a lot that we show'd up, you could tell. Although they didn't know what to do with us. The only thing they could say to us was, "So how's it going?" We have decided from now on if we get another invite, we'd like it to have a picture of the reception hall, picture of the other guests who will be there, and a sampling of the food. Just so we know what to expect, we'll show up, cause we are those kind of people. All the stuff you send with the invite will determine the amount of time we will stay at your affair.

Cleaning....

I freakin hate cleaning. And you can sure tell by my cluttered home. So today I tackled the bathroom. Cleaned the toilet. Ewwww....why me? I'm the one who actually pee's in the toilet. Men should always have to clean the toilet since they somehow can't freakin aim. We'll blame the smaller man of the house, but we can also blame the big man since he should be teaching him the fine art of aiming. Don't you think?

Fancying things up a bit. I hooked up my links all by myself and nobody was hurt in the process. Computer coding nonsense is not my thing. That's why I liked type pad so well. But alas I dove in and did it. If you'd like me to hook you up with a link give me a shout in the comments section. Several folks leave comments but not everyone has a blog, and not sure if those who have one want me to link them.

Fall Out Boy

Love this song....

DANCE DANCE DANCE

Amazing!

As if I haven't cried enough lately. Minding my own business I come across this story about a kid who is autistic, Jason and cried like a big freakin baby. Ironic it comes at the end of my own special needs childs basketball season. Where he struggled to even know what the heck was going on. To think someday after some extensive training from professionals who know what the heck they are doing, that could be him. Or not, but it'll be something else as spectacular I assure you.

Old Times...

Ahhh yes old times.
Perry: It's so great remembering the old times isn't it mommy, like when I learned how to use scissors. I live to cut things out.
Mommy: Ahhh yes, don't we all. Who the hell invented scissors anyways remind me to smack them!

You people think I'm kidding. The kid draws everything......EVERYTHING.....and then has to cut it out. So if he draws everything, and every waking moment of his life, and then cuts them out, imagine the enormous amount of cut up paper that I am unable to keep up with on my living room floor. It's quite overwhelming really, since apparently I am the only one who lives here and can instruct the child to pick the shit up, or give up and pick it up myself. Does no one else see that paper on the floor??? So now his latest obsession is My gym Partners A Monkey, yeah they go to Charles Darwin Middle school, because a yellow sponge living in a pineapple under the sea wasn't cool enough. Now we have a kid who goes to a middle school full of animals and his gym partners a spider monkey. Did people ever have gym partners anyways? Ok so he's drawing these characters off Cartoonnetwork.com, and I say "please don't cut those out....please.....I'm begging. So he's able to hold off, for oh say 15 min. I turn my back for 5 min, and he's got the freakin papers...in his room with his scissors cutting away. Ahhhh.....but then he comes in and says "Mommy I got something to tell ya,.......now don't be mad......I had to cut out my pictures. But look I'm throwing away the scraps." So I'm putting him to bed, and he says, "ahhh come on mommy, show me a smile, you know I live to cut stuff out." I do not make this stuff up, it's my life! I will someday soon accumulate a pile of these lovely paper creations and take a picture for the world to see.

Cube Crying.....

I am consumed with the enormousness of the responsibility of doing the right thing for my kid basically. As well as wanting to do what God has planned for me. So I'm reading comments from people who are amazingly supportive of my honesty, and see me completely for who I am, can not tell you how much it means to me when you drop in your pearls of wisdom as comments. But when I read them at work.....well....it ain't pretty! Probably doesn't help that the song by Kate Miner (brilliant worship leader and singer) just came on the ipod, yeah it's called "Who will cry for Me?" Stacie's right when she says....and I wish I could've remember this last night for my Alpha peeps......if God was easy to figure out, I doubt he'd be a God we'd be willing to serve. I guess I know "Who will cry for me....." Thanks for "getting" me.

HOLD UP....

Forgot to give a big ol shout out to Stacie for hooking up my sweet blog. She's got mad graphics designing skills. And she cuss's from time to time....shhhh....don't tell her mom!

Afraid.

I've had a few big disappointments in my life recently. Things I thought were God moving me in the right direction. Granted looking back I do recall significant doubt occurring during the time of making the "right" decision. So therefor I feel a big gunshy if you will. During the events of the disappointments, I didn't give up I kept pressing on with hope, only to not get what I myself wanted and being slightly disappointed but in no way devastated. Bummed for a day or two, then moved on. But because of those disappointments I am afraid I'll be unable to have faith when I need to. Does this make any sense to anyone or am I talking out of my butt? Oh how I feel that way often. Everything in my being tells me to pursue this whole Springer thing, yet I'm afraid I won't have the gumption to push for it. Like because of disappointments I'll begin to doubt, and not push forward and that would be a disservice to my child. So I need to build myself up to be a freakin grown up and get shit done. End of story. If it doesn't work out it doesn't work out, I'll move on. But there's part of me that like "Ok God but now it's my kid you are messing with, and if this doesn't work out, I'll be more than disappointed." This could be the time I am devastated. Ok Ok Ok....wait a minute! God doesn't mess with you! Geez.....he nudges you to pursue things that are outside of you comfort zone to build character, even if he knows things won't go the way you want them to, he's building my character so that, when I do pursue the thing that will happen, I'll have built up the character to do so......HOLY CRAP....now that people was a cathartic moment. Or as Oprah says, and Ah-ha moment. Only a good Christian girl, like myself can use the word Shit and God in the same blog and get away with it. I challenge you to do the same. It'll feel good, and seriously God doesn't care. He's just happy you'll be talking about him. Now I wouldn't suggest dropping F-bombs.....but cuss at will.....it'll feel good.

Overwhelmed

I am completely overwhelmed by lifes responsibilities. Work, finances, child raising, husband raising, schedules, scheduling me time, church, leadership responsibilities, domestic responsibilities, extended family, friends.....it's never ending. Does anything ever just happen without the involvement of me in some way? No, highly unlikely. I will give my husband props for making an effort to be up and ready to go to church early yesterday. He was a tired and a complete ass most of the day, but he made it to church for the 10 o'clock service, and I believe he was actually touched by the first part of it, the rest of it he was fighting falling asleep. I would very much like things to just happen like him being up and ready to go to the 10 o'clock service, that was clearly and HG hook up (Holy Ghost or God hook up) why can't all things happen that way? Like my kid going to bed and staying in bed and just going to sleep without getting up and begging for a snack at 10 pm.....yeah it's too late. Why can't the bills just be paid, without me having to do it? Why can't the house just clean itself? Why can't all the big decisions in life just be easy to make without trying to make sure you are making the right decision? Why can't life just be normal? Sorry that post probably made no sense to anyone....except me who is clearly OVERFREAKINWHELMED!

GEEGAW!

Geegaw and the Wee Gnome
Originally uploaded by Yoda0419.

Ok so mom says I am ashamed of her usually and often a whole lot of other nonsense...the women suffers from low self esteem or something. She's quite lovely actually. Look here she is with the Wee Gnome at my Nephews birthday party. If you click on the picture you can see what else he's been up to. So mad props to Geegaw for going to the circus with Perry at the last minute so Ron and I could go to the Springer School Open House.

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

A little about the circus. Layni (my best friend) and I used to go to the circus before I had a kid every year. We'd always get the snowcone cups because they were always so cool. So I couldn't wait, to go and get my cup, cause really it's really the only reason to go right. Because really walking on the tight rope makes me a bit squeamish. The motorcycles in the giant steel cage is completely frightful. And after what happened to Roy...well the tigers are just unpredictable. And clowns, well after the movie IT, they are kind of creepy. Ecspecially the the Bello dude they got traveling with them now, he doesn't even look like your traditional clown, do clowns evolve??

So Geegaw and Perry went to the circus with some friends from cub scouts.

Ok so Ron and I headed over to Springers Open house. Gosh what a breath of fresh air. The school takes a total of 200-250 students a year. The class sizes are 12 students at the most. The teachers all have educational assistants, so theres 2 people for 12 kids.....WHAT? The teacher I spoke to said that more often than not she is working with kids one on one. She'll have a group of kids no more than 4 at the most. Can you imagine the concetrated educating that goes on with that small of a class? All of the children in this school have learning disabilities, so the kids are not looked upon from their peers like theres something wrong with them. It's more like "what kind of learning disability do you have, oh really well I have that too." I'm not saying the seclusion is the answer, but building ones self esteem, and being accepted by your peers is such a huge part of growing up. If you constantly looked upon as being "different", you begin to build a wall, it's hard to get over or through that wall. Perry already will say "well mommy I'm not really that smart." How can he feel that way already at age 8?? I haven't told him that, I've only told him how smart he is from the time he could understand what I was saying. So somehow the message of "you aren't smart is being communicated to him from somewhere, yeah see I don't like that! And if you have this kind of an oppurtunity early on, by the time you get to high school when the more difficult peer issues begin to happen he'll have all sorts of strategies and confidence theres no question he'll be able to handle it. I so want him to have this kind of oppurtunity. There are 2 big obsticles that would keep him from it. 1. MONEY, we don't have one of those trees in the back yard, right now they are doing possibly 50% financial aid, but that doesn't mean we'll get that much. 2. Location, it's about a 40 minute drive from our house. We've not explored the transportation options of which there could be many. These 2 external options makes my husband shut the whole thing down as even an option. He's so much a glass half empty kind of person and I am the complete opposite. I am a "wow this place is perfect for him who cares how much it costs or how we are going to get him there, lets just get him in." Not sure if that's good or bad. So heres the thing I've not yet given where he is now even the oppurtunity to come through on educating him, it just seems like such a burden that I have to fight and work for every step of the way. I am not confident that him being educated properly and well where he is now is just going to happen without a constant fight. Not to mention what happens to him when he's not being protected by a teacher or friend when no one's looking. How is he being treated? Why can't I just be by his side where ever he goes or standing off watching so nobody picks on him? All kids should have a mini mommy who shrinks down like Mike TV in the original Willy Wonka, and you could just slide mini mommy in your pocket or backpack, and when punk kids pick on you you can snap your fingers, and she becomes life size, and puts the punk kids in their place, or give them an annoying lecture on how to treat kids who might be a little bit unique. Oh and when we were taking a tour (some of the mom's who read my blog will love this) all the kids have lockers, even the primary age kids, and many of the lockers were decorated with their name and stuff, well one of the lockers had a bumper sticker on it that was retro looking and it said Autism Awareness....how cool. You wouldn't see that in your average public school. Ok so big decisions to make, and we have an IEP meeting on the 16th. So be praying oh faithful prayer warriors.

ADD book

cover
Originally uploaded by Yoda0419.

Heres a book I created to document our journey with ADD. It was great therapy. I did it because Stacie told me to initially. But once I really got into it, after alll the evaluations were over, it was so so so very helpful. If you click on the picture it'll take you to the rest of the book.

It's been a Month.

Can you believe it? A month since my idea to be a trader. I am leaning on returning to blogger. I might be able to fancy things up a bit to make me happy. With the help of Stacie, we'll make things prettier. Lots to talk about but for now just wanted to give folks a heads up that I'll be back to blogger tonight. And typepad is getting shut down this evening. In the mean time heres a picutre to hold you over....that's my man and my niece. Both are pretty darn cute. Lots to update you on, stay tuned.