this is what we woke up to this morning

 

 

Following the beautiful snow on Friday, we awoke to find the trees covered in a heavy, frozen fog this morning. God is good!!!

dear john,

 

Oh how I long to hear your voice! When you wake me from a deep slumber, you cause my heart to flutter with excitement and anticipation. Last night, as I fell asleep, I dreamt that you might call. And my wishes and dreams came true, when at 5:30 am, you telephoned to inform me that school had been cancelled!!!!

Yay for SNOW DAYS!!!!!!

       

 

**Dr. John Black is our school district’s Deputy Superintendent. And the magical man who can give or take snow days!!

lunch ladies?

Sometimes a hair net is so much better than my actual hair!!

We packaged food again for Numana to send to Haiti. And we truly are doing it for the good feeling we get after helping others, and not just for the beautiful accessories!

chicka chicka 1 2 3

Nate was listening to some audio books on his I Pod before getting ready for bed. Delaney decided to join in for some dancing fun.

And she's still not talking, but she's pretty good at animal noises.

checking in

Things have been busy here the past few days.

Not busy enough to blog about.

Just busy with life.

Nate is doing well after running a fever a couple of nights last week. No other symptoms. Just a fever.

Delaney likes to take her own temperature. Luckily, we don’t take it rectally!

 

Brianna took her first drive around the block. Gaga was the brave soul who dared to take the plunge. The first words out of Bri’s mouth as she sat behind the wheel: The brake is the one on the left, right?

Yikes!!!

 

Allison is cheering once or twice a week. Cheered her team to another victory this week!

I borrowed Jason’s zoom lens for a couple of weeks and was able to get some better pictures.

Fun stuff. I want my own!!

So that gets you up to speed with us. Another week is over. Where do the days go?

helping the needy

So after spending the morning packaging food for the children in Haiti, Allison and I headed to Wal*Mart to buy groceries for our own family.

As we were leaving the parking lot, I noticed a man standing outside his car, holding a sign asking for money for gas.

I know you’ve seen similar people. They are either homeless and need money for food. Or their car broke down and they need money to get where they are going. Or their car ran out of gas and they need money to fill it up.

I’m a skeptic by nature. I pretty much always expect the worst from people. I’m thinking to myself, “He must be a scam artist. He’ll probably just spend the money on alcohol or drugs.”

But then I thought, maybe he’s not. Maybe he truly just needs some money to put gas in his car. Who am I to judge? But I still didn’t really want to stop so I drove on past him.

Then I realized I had pulled into another parking lot which had no outlet, so I had to turn around and go past this man again. Maybe God was telling me something.

So I decided to pull out $2, which was all the cash I had. I pulled over to the man, rolled down my window and said, “This is all I have. God bless you.”

What do you do in these situations? Do you help? What do you say? Was I scammed?

food for haiti

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about the book our Sunday School class is reading. Outflow. And I told you how I wasn’t doing a very good job of pouring out God’s love to others. How my fountain may be clogged.

Well I’ve had some opportunities to get my fountain flowing again this week.

A local organization, Numana, works with The Salvation Army and packages food for school children in Haiti. They had just finished a packaging event, which was scheduled to be sent out and arrive in Haiti sometime in March. Following this week’s tragedy in Haiti, that food will be sent by Fed Ex (at no charge). And Numana had another packaging event this weekend. Their goal was to package 285,000 meals. When we left at noon (the event was scheduled to continue until 8 pm) they had packaged 410,000 meals!!

The meals consist of soy, powdered vitamins, freeze dried vegetables and rice. Can you imagine if this was your only meal? How easy it is to forget how fortunate we are!

Don’t the kids look fantastic in their hair nets and aprons?

I stayed strategically behind the camera in order to avoid any such documentation.

These are some friends from church. Where’s your hair net, Chelle?

The place was packed! We saw all sorts of people we knew. I even ran into my cousin Ryan.

We had to wait in line for about 45 minutes just to help. And we were only able to work for one hour, in order to allow everyone an opportunity to participate. Wow!!

The whole operation went so smoothly. It was like an assembly line. One person scooped vitamins and vegetables. Another person scooped soy. Someone else scooped rice while someone held the bag under a funnel. The bags were weighed, then made airtight and sealed (my job), stacked in piles of two and then boxed up.

There’s another packaging event next weekend. The goal is to package 1 million.

So, I guess my fountain is slowly filtering some water. We’ll see what other outflow opportunities arise.

Go Team!!

I try to make it to most of the middle school basketball games. Not so much to watch the basketball team. But to support my cheerleader.

 

Because of her size,  I’m afraid Allison is destined to be a “flyer”. That’s the cheerleader they throw up into the air. I’m not so happy about that part of cheerleading. And neither is she.

This week was her first opportunity to stunt. We were both a little nervous.

   Victory!!

And you can see what a great job those cheerleaders did!!

girls' night

Brianna and I had a rare girls' night out. It's not too often I get to spend time with just one of my girls, especially one of the teenagers. But Brianna was kind enough to clear her schedule on a Saturday night and go downtown to the movie with her mama. Remember, one of my new year's resolutions/goals was to spend time with each family member individually at least once each month.

We live in a small town and have a beautiful, historic theater. Which is actually on the National Register of Historic Places. It's an art deco theater, built in the 1930's.

The kids like to go the movies on Friday nights. So I try to stay away from there on those nights. I'm around enough kids all week. The last thing I want to do by Friday night is be surrounded by middle schoolers! But it's a good place for them to socialize, especially at that awkward stage in their lives. I just don't want to be around it!

There were still plenty of tweens at the movie on Saturday. But I'll take it for the $5 tickets and cheap concessions. I spent $16 total. Wow!!

It's not the place to go if you're looking for cushy, high-back seats, THX surround sound or leg room (there's zero leg room...trust me!!) But what other theater starts the movie with the National Anthem (I'm surprised each and every time I go), is run by volunteers, and is filled with people you know? Sometimes it's all about the atmosphere.

And in case you're wondering, we saw The Blind Side. Awesome movie! I'm not a sports fan. I'm especially not a football fan. But who doesn't love a feel good movie about athletes?

i’m not the only one reading around here

Delaney has a shelf full of board books. And as part of her bedtime routine, I’d love to sit and read to her. But she would rather just rock during our quiet times, which is fine. Because I do enjoy cuddling.

But I also wish that Delaney would sit and listen while I read to her at some point during the day. And I wouldn’t even mind re-reading the same book over and over. Books like The Foot Book or Goodnight Moon.

Books that were read to me over and over. (This is one of my books, circa 1977.)

Even though she doesn’t let me “read” to her, Delaney does like books. And she even has a favorite book.

Not exactly one of the classics. And she won’t even let me read it. She just opens up that book, says, “Mommy” and taps my leg. Once she has my attention, she points to every picture in the book, anxiously waiting for me to name each and every shape and animal in the whole entire book.

So that’s the way we read books.

For now.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to read an actual story.

Until then, it’s just a lot of “goat, bear, circle, square, bird…”

what DID i do during christmas vacation?

Well in addition to the many Christmas celebrations, overeating, sledding, travelling and just being lazy, I managed to get a little reading in. Actually I managed to get a LOT of reading in.


We are currently reading Outflow in our Sunday School class. It challenges us to spread the love of Jesus to those around us. To our family. To our friends. To our community.
It compares us to a fountain that overflows with love, joy, hope, peace, grace.
So far I haven't been much of a fountain. I think I'm working on becoming unclogged.
I'll let you know of any outflow experiences I have.

I borrowed Infidel from a co-worker. She and I have this weird fascination/obsession with the plight of the muslim woman. It all started with A Thousand Splendid Suns.
For me, it's just so hard to believe that women are living in such an oppressed culture.
Infidel is a biography about a woman born in Somalia who overcomes the oppression of her religion.

I have some friends on a message board who decided to start an online book club. We started in December. And our first book was Gift from the Sea. I read it on December 28th.
It was first written over 50 years ago. It addresses the busy lives we as women tend to lead. Trying to fit it all in. Being mom. Wife. Career woman. Chaffeur. Cheerleader. And the list goes on and on.
In order to be effective in all our roles, we need to take time for ourselves. To replenish our strength and motivation.

This was our January book for our book club. I read it in about two days. I don't usually like novels like this. I prefer to read books that make me think. But it was enjoyable to get lost in a book. And I loved the British colloquialisms.
The best part about reading this book, was that I downloaded it as an e-book onto my Blackberry. Kind of like reading a Kindle. It was with me wherever I went. I could ask Delaney to bring me my phone, and voila, my book was there.
I think I'll do more e-books in the future!!

This is my current read. And I'm itching to get off this computer so I can get back to reading!!
The Help is about 1960's Mississippi. And the lives of the "colored" maids who run the households and raise the children. Separate but still not equal.

So there you have it. That's what I did during Christmas vacation!