Cooking? Fun?

I've never been one to really enjoy cooking. Something about spending hours in the kitchen, doing work that may or may not be appreciated (when I could be doing something else that's more fun), has never really appealed to me. I do, however, enjoy the eating part. (This is reminding me of the story of the Little Red Hen.) So in order to motivate myself to be proactive about making dinner (rather than scrambling for a frozen pizza every night!), I've started planning meals around what I like to eat. Suddenly the anticipation of eating the food makes the preparation much more tolerable.

When this day began, we had no groceries in the house. So this morning the girls and I went to the store, list in hand, and restocked the house. I made a pie for the neighbors (it was a no-bake kit), and took that to them, and after spending a few minutes over there, came back home to get the potatoes cut & cooking for our dinner. We're having burgers and oven fries. Yum! Tomorrow night is chicken fajitas. Even better! (That reminds me, I need to get the chicken trimmed and marinating so it's ready for cooking tomorrow.)

This coming Sunday evening we have a church event at a city park where our church rents a pavilion, and we have lots of different musical acts sing and play. They call it "Sunday Night Sing". They'll serve hot dogs and cokes, and a wide assortment of songs. Last year I sang with an a capella sextet, and we're getting the gang back together for this. (I can't believe we haven't sung together since last year!) The song in my head is the one we're doing on Sunday, "When God Dips His Love In My Heart". Within the group, we affectionately call it "Dips". My part is mostly doo-wah's. It's a lot of fun.

Love Thy New Neighbors

Today I just met the family that moved in next door to us. I already love my new neighbors! They're a Christian family with 2 little girls, 3 and almost 1. Their 3 year old is 5 days younger than our 3 year old, and since I took my girls with me to meet them, my little one was already playing princesses with their little girl within 5 minutes of being there! I'm so excited to have a friend next door. Our old neighbors were nice people, with kids way too old to play with mine, and we never really hit it off. They were good neighbors as far as being quiet, and keeping their yard nice, and we were nervous about the unknown future neighbors. We could not have asked for a better family to move next to us! Thank you, God!

Today there is a list of songs that have taken turns taking over my brain. I woke up with Heart's "Bebe Le Strange" going through my head. Then at lunch, my dear husband started singing the "Free Credit Report Dot Com" song to me. And now trying to think of the other one I was going to post, all I can think is that dumb commercial. Arg. I hate it when that happens. (Yeah, he was singing the pirate one.)

Catching Up Post-VBS

Can you imagine, a whole week of giving my time and energy outside of the home, and my home gets neglected. It's just shocking, I know. Well, I did do several family things this week with my girls. Thursday we went to the pool for a couple hours, and Friday I took them to Ready, Set, PLAY!, an inflatable wonderland of sorts. So between outings like that, and being out of the house EVERY evening this week, there's a pile of dishes and laundry waiting for me today. Hooray. (I hope the sarcasm shines through.)

Generally speaking, I'm not a good housekeeper. I just don't stay on top of the day to day tasks that are required to maintain a clean house. I can clean, and I do a good job of it when I do it. But then a few days go by, and it looks like the "maid" needs to come again. *Sigh.*

So in weeks where my attention is diverted, like VBS week, the normal daily maintenance tasks pile up higher, and more dauntingly than usual. I try not to do laundry on the weekends, so that my husband doesn't have to deal with piles of clothes around waiting their turn in the machines, but this week, it has to be that way. And the dishes... I was whisking my big girl off to VBS as soon as she could swallow her last bite of dinner every night. There wasn't time for me to deal with dishes until I came home each night around 8:35, ready to take a breather. (That's not to say that someone else couldn't have stepped in a little, but I really didn't make it easy. The dishwasher was full of clean dishes for most of the week.)

I'm really laying it all out there for everyone, aren't I. Oh well. I guess I'm real.

Today I put on Mary Poppins for the girls, so "Chim-Chim-Cheree" is currently in my head. I think it's time to put on my iPod and change that up. I need an aural "cleansing of the palate". It's not that I don't love Mary Poppins. I just don't want to be singing that for the REST OF THE DAY, and trust me, if I don't do something about this soon, I will.

Last Night of VBS

Praise God it's the last day! But seriously, it has been a great week. Last night's song was so powerful. It was a slow, reflective song about God's word, simply entitled, "The Word." The classes I taught (5th grade) really got serious with it. I was blessed by the questions they raised, and the way they listened to the discussions that resulted. It's a scary place to be imparting deep theological truths to children. If I don't say something right, they could have a misconception about God that lasts for years. But I have to trust God, and the results are really not up to me. For those 20 minutes, the kids were singing, "I love the Word of God!" How sweet is that?!

I really liked that song, "The Word." I even took the time to figure out the chords on the piano. So that's been in my head (and my fingers) for the last couple days. Very cool.

Wiki Wiki

Tonight's song for VBS is "Wiki Wiki." And it's stuck in my head. The worst part is that it's just one little phrase that's stuck in my head, and not the whole thing. It's driving me crazy that I can't even get to a cadence in my own head!! (The music nerds out there will understand what I mean by that!)

A cool thing that's been happening today is that my big girl and I have been singing the songs from VBS together. She really likes the song from Monday night, "My God is Real." How cool is that to hear my 5 year old singing loudly and proudly, "I know my God is real!" It brings such a peace to my heart hearing those words come from her lips. I don't think she understands personal salvation through Jesus Christ, but she does know that Jesus died for "our sins". I'm eager for the day when she makes that profession of faith for herself.

"A-ya-wiki, B-ya-wiki, C-ya-wiki..."

VBS Week, and More Roofing

This week is Vacation Bible School at our church. We do it in the evening to make it easier for more adults to participate. I suppose it also makes it easier for parents who work to take their kids too. Anyway, it's this week, and our first night was last night. The theme this year is "Outrigger Island," a real tropical, Hawaiian luau kind of thing, minus the tiki gods and hula girls. It's the Lifeway curriculum for this year. I'm teaching 5th grade music. My big girl is 5 and old enough to participate, so she goes with me. My little girl is 3 and she's staying home with her daddy this week. Last night my husband forgot that it was VBS week, and he got home about 10 minutes after I was supposed to be at the church. I was just about to get shoes on the little one to take her with me and have him pick her up there when he walked in the door.

Later, after I had taught my lessons for the night, I was preparing for tonight's lesson, resetting some props when a sweet lady came in and tagged some things that will be reused on a mission trip to Romania later this summer. She tagged an inflatable sea turtle. The turtle is being used to reinforce the truth of the day. I'm supposed to hide it in the room, and the kids are to find it, and then I get it out and turn it over and the truth for the day is on its tummy. Last night it said "God is real." Tonight's truth is "Jesus is God's son." So I had just written that in dry erase marker on the turtle's tummy when the lady from the Romania team stepped in. After she left, I looked around for a spot to hide the turtle. In my VBS room there's a wall of cabinets with about a foot of space above it going all the way across. At the very end of the row of cabinets, there's a place where it's not wide enough for another cabinet, and there's a face plate, even with the plane of the cabinet doors. I thought I'd put the turtle right up there on top of that spot. When I did, it went all the way down. I dropped it in a cavity that ran nearly the entire height of the wall! Not only could the Romania team not have it, I couldn't have it for the rest of the week! Panicking, I called the sweet lady back to tell her what I had done, and then I climbed up on a bookshelf and took a look from the top where I had dropped the turtle. To my surprise and relief, there was a space at the bottom where the toe-kick was set back from the panel. I could see carpet, and light down there. There was hope of recovering the turtle! So I got down on the floor and stuck my hand up that space, looking for the little stopper on the turtle with my fingers. I found it but I couldn't pull it with my fingernails. (Why did I cut them yesterday??) That's a job I'd usually do with my teeth. I just couldn't get it. It's a good thing that the other sweet lady was able to get it with her fingernails, and she deflated the turtle enough to pull it out. It was a successful rescue! That was enough drama for the week. I sure hope I don't do anything so stupid tonight! (And if I do, I hope it can be corrected like last night!)

So with the island theme, a friend of mine put Jonathan Coulton's "Skullcusher Mountain" in my head. It's a very funny song written from the perspective of a James Bond-type villain, holding a pretty girl captive.

Roofing continues today. Initially they told us they could do it in one day, but I guess the siesta went a little long yesterday afternoon. I don't really care, as long as it gets done and they do a good job. And really, there's no threat of rain. (I wish that weren't the case. We need the rain!)

New Roof Today

POUND POUND POUND

Today we're getting a new roof. It's weird being inside the house with all that going on.

POUND POUND POUND

The kids were bothered by it at first, but they're pretty used to it after a couple hours.

POUND POUND POUND

I had to handle a couple things on the phone, and that was interesting with all this noise.

POUND POUND POUND

If you think it's annoying to read it, interrupting the flow, just imagine what it's like being here.

POUND POUND POUND

No song right now, other than the "POUND POUND POUND".

Conflict-Free Sunday!!

Today I'm celebrating a conflict-free Sunday! It seems like Sunday mornings, when it's time to get everyone dressed in their "Sunday best" and out the door for church, is the prime-time for conflict in our house. Today it was not so. And we weren't late, or anything. Very nice.

And it didn't end there. This has just been a very good day.

In my head tonight is "Love Songs" by Fleming & John.

Family Reunion

Today we went to a family reunion for my husband's mom's mom's side of the family. I just love that this family tradition has been kept going for somewhere around 70 or 80 years. It's a good thing to get together with people you're related to, even if you don't know them all that well. How else will you ever know where you come from?

This year it was harder than in years past to go to the reunion. There was someone noticeably absent. My father-in-law died in January of this year. Even though he was an in-law to this crew (as am I), he had been part of the "McDonald Family" for the 36 years he was married to my mother-in-law. He was a dear man and he is sorely missed.

Now playing in my head is "Broken Places," by Jars of Clay.

So let's do this already...

Seems like everyone is on the blog bandwagon. Why not join in? Actually, I had a blog briefly in 2002. I called it "Ramblings of a Hormonal Baby Oven". I was pregnant with daughter #1 back then. And my title was derivative of my husband's blog which was even shorter-lived than mine, "Rantings of a Deranged Meteorologist". All that's to day that I'm actually RE-joining the blogging world. I hope this attempt is more of a success than the last.

So what am I doing here? I hope that I can share enough of my life to bring people a smile and maybe even a song of their own.

(And yes, my husband is a meteorologist, but not on TV.)