E-Bay & Bob

Today we (the girls and I) took a little road trip to see my husband's sister and her family. They live about an hour and a half away, it's just right for a day-trip. We had a really nice time, and another day without Daddy went by very quickly.

On the way there and back, we listened to CD's. (Our car is not fancy enough to have an input for the iPod... someday...)

We listened to Weird Al's Poodle Hat, PFR's Them, Fleming & John's Delusions of Grandeur, and my Jonathan Coulton mix CD.

What I have in my head are two songs from the Weird Al CD, "E-Bay" a song parody of the Backstreet Boys' "I Did It My Way" (I think?), and "Bob," a knock-off of Bob Dylan's style, but every line is a palindrome. The video for that one is great, a true parody of a Bob Dylan video.

So after listening to 4 CD's, and over 55 songs, I have in my head 2 songs from the first thing I heard today. Go figure.

Plush... Ahhh....

OK, I found it.

At first I thought it was Soundgarden, but that wasn't it. Then I thought it might be Pearl Jam, but the voice is my head was not Eddie Vetter, so I had huge doubt.

After going through nearly the entire library (obviously skipping over stuff like Pink Floyd, anything with a girl singer, etc), I finally found it.

"Plush," by Stone Temple Pilots.

There's a huge block of songs I have in my library that came from my husband's collection. I'm not as familiar with it, and I frequently confuse the songs and artists, especially the ones I mentioned. I'm much better with the obvious ones like Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I really didn't participate in the pop culture of my era because I misunderstood my parents when I was about seven years old. They didn't want me listening to Madonna and Michael Jackson, for obvious reasons, and I misunderstood their wishes to include all secular music. So for about ten years, I listened to contemporary Christian music. (There was an unfortunate exception to that when I was in middle school for the New Kids On The Block.) And when I gave up on the local Christian radio station (their pledge drive was going on for over a year), I started listening to classic rock. I was also introduced to The Beatles by my dad. Anyway, the point of all that is my lack of knowledge pertaining to the music of the 90's. That may also help explain some of the wide variety of songs that get stuck in my head.

I really need my husband around in times like this. He'd have known which song it was. I really miss him. He comes home Friday. I can't wait!

Going Crazy

I have a song in my head and I can't place it. I'm going crazy. I can't even think of the artist. So I'm going through my entire iTunes library searching thoroughly so I can make it stop. I don't even know the words well enough to give myself any help with a song title. Ugh.

The only line I remember is "and I feel so much depends on the weather..." It's a really catchy guitar riff, heavy-ish rock song. I need to hear the rest of it.

I'm only in the F's in my iTunes so far. I'll let you know what it is if I find it.

Beauty & The Beast - No fairy tale moral story this time!

The weekend without my hubby is half gone. This is a good thing. And it's been a really good weekend.

Last night was our big outing to see Beauty & The Beast in the park. The girls did very well, considering that the show didn't start until after their bedtime! Little girl was paying attention very well, making comments and amusing the people sitting around us. I thought she was going to fall asleep on my lap, but every time she let her head rest, she'd perk up to see the action on stage. She didn't even fall asleep on the way home.

Big girl had a blast. She was very much into naming off who was the hero and who was the villain (yes, she knows words like that). In that vein, I was trying to explain to her that Gaston was the villain for trying to make Belle marry him even though she didn't want to. I said to her that when she grows up, she doesn't have to marry anyone if she doesn't want to. She followed that up with, "And when I'm an astronaut, I'll have to go out of the earth." Apparently whatever I said when over her head. That's OK. She's five.

After the big night out, not a creature was stirring in the house before 9 AM this morning! We got back home after 11:30 PM last night, so we were all pretty tired. And I stayed up later than I should have unwinding with the TV on in my bedroom. My mother-in-law and her mother stayed until just before dinner, so they helped me pass the day with company, and playing with the girls. All in all, it was a slow, satisfying day today.

I think my favorite song from Beauty & The Beast is the song about Gaston. And of course that's the one in my head the day after seeing the show. Favorite line, sung by Gaston: "I'm especially good at EXPECTORATING!" For those who need a fix after one of my suggestions, here you go!

Fun Stuff For the Kids

This week I'm trying to do fun stuff with the kids while Daddy is away. On Tuesday, we did this art project pictured to the right. More accurately, the girls painted the flowers and butterflies, and I painted the giant letter K's. (Both of their names start with K.)

Big girl painted the flower with a stem, and the butterfly with open wings. The little one painted the other flower (all the way to the right) and the other butterfly (all the way left). Little girl did have the butterfly multi-colored like her flower, but then she painted over all that with the green. I went behind her and added some other colors to her butterfly so it wouldn't be just a solid green thing. I feel bad that I did that. Oh well. As you can see in the picture, we painted inside these boxes. Little girl's box was more painted than either of her magnets. (The box pictured was my box.) I took all the pieces outside and gave them a spray of clear lacquer.

With the K's, Big girl requested pink with green polka dots, and Little girl just requested pink. When asked if she wanted polka dots, she nodded, but didn't tell me what color, so she got multi-colored dots.

Then Wednesday after we came home from our ritual Wednesday night dinner location, I made the girls banana-strawberry milkshakes. That was really yummy. And this morning I made pancakes for breakfast. That's a huge departure for me. It's usually cereal around here. I think the girls enjoyed it. (That my have been the first time I've ever made pancakes in my life come to think of it...)

Tomorrow night my mother-in-law is joining us and we're going to see a local production of Beauty and the Beast. And next week we have a trip to see their cousins, and my sister-in-law and her family.

I hope the kids will remember doing stuff like this. At 5 and 3 it's hard to know what they'll remember. My big girl seems to remember everything. I wonder what she'll forget...

Cinderella Style

Today I felt like Cinderella. Not the beautiful princess in a magical ball gown Cinderella, but the on all fours scrubbing the floor Cinderella. That's what I did this afternoon. I put the kids down for their naps and got to work. I was interrupted a few times by phone calls, and the kids did get up long before I finished, but I got it done. I had one bucket with the soapy water and a brush, and another bucket with rinse water and a sponge. I sat on a towel and scooted the towel over the tiles I had finished so that I was drying the floor, and protecting it from my feet at the same time, and scooted my buckets along with me. It took nearly four hours, but I did all the downstairs tile which includes the kitchen, breakfast area, formal dining room (our office), powder room and the laundry room. I think even Martha Stewart would be proud. Any dirt that's left has at least been cleaned with Pine Sol at this point. My bare feet are in heaven walking over it. Ahhhh... I feel good.

I got to thinking about Cinderella while I was busy at work. Part of the main point of the story of Cinderella is her attitude in the midst of her circumstances. While she's scrubbing the floor, her step-sisters are enjoying a music lesson with their evil mother (in the Disney version anyway), not having to do the back-breaking labor that Cinderella has to do. And what does she do? Does she whine and pout? Does she even complain? Does it sour her attitude towards her family? Towards life? Not at all. She graciously serves them, doing her best to meet their needs, and doing it all with a smile.

I know it's a cartoon. And I know it's a fictional story, where writers and artists are going out of their way to elicit sympathy for the main character and deepen the conflict in the story. I understand all that. But I want to make a point here. As a wife and mother it's easy to get the idea that no one appreciates what I do, and be jealous of others in the household who don't do the things I do. But it matters that I do the things I'm supposed to do, and it matters what kind of attitude is on display while I do them. With that in mind, I cheerfully scrubbed my floor "Cinderella style."

I did constantly shoo the kids off "the squares." Hey, their feet aren't nearly as clean as that floor!

Even though I was wearing my iPod while I worked, the overwhelming song in my head today is none other than, "Sing, Sweet Nightingale," from Disney's Cinderella. There are some really pretty harmonies in that song, with the reflections in the bubbles singing the extra parts. It's very well done. I hope it makes you smile to think of that as you go about your work.

In-Head Song Wars

My dearest husband is gone. I did cry all the way to the airport, but once we pulled back out onto the highway, leaving the airport, a more quiet sadness settled in.

My little girl was asleep in the car on the way to and from the airport, and when we stopped for dinner (with our free kids' meal coupons at Applebees!), she looked up and said, "Where's Daddy?" Poor thing missed the good-bye.

I'm thinking back to this past Sunday when he was still here. We were in a particularly playful mood with each other (my favorite!), and he complained of a song in his head as we were sitting in our "Sunday school" class before it started. I leaned over to him and started singing "U Can't Touch This," by M. C. Hammer in his ear. He immediately rejected that suggestion and started singing some other equally annoying song in my ear (which didn't throw me off, or else I'd remember what it was).

The trump-card in such a battle is always the "Free Credit Report Dot Com" jingle. Too bad I didn't remember that on Sunday...

And now that's all I can think of... "They say a man should always dress for the job he wants. So why am I dressed up like a pirate in this restaurant?..."

I'll leave you with that.

Catching Up

My parents took the kids for a few days while I had a minor "procedure". I'm doing fine, and everything went well. I wasn't even sick after the anesthesia, which was my biggest concern going in. I did miss the kids.

While at Mom & Dad's my big girl told Mom that picking up toys wasn't "exhilerating." She's right on, of course. Her vocabulary never really ceases to amaze. Keep in mind that she's five years old, and hasn't even started Kindergarten yet.

Mom gave it a go potty training the little one while they were with her. That attempt was largely as unsuccessful as my last round with that willful child. She managed to do a deuce in the potty once (probably a coincidence), but made puddles everywhere when not in diapers. So, it's still not her idea, and it won't work until it is. Honestly, diapers are just easier for me. I hope at some point they will be humiliating to her. But until then... ?

Later today my dear husband is leaving for work out of town. This time he'll be gone for nearly two weeks. I'm not sappy-sad like I was the last time we had to say good-bye, but I'm not happy about it in the least. He has a good job, and we're very thankful for it. I just want him here while he does it.

The song in my head right now is a doozy! I was looking at some friends' pictures on facebook, and there was a picture of this friend of mine in front of a yule log with her daughter. So the song is P. D. Q. Bach's "Throw the Yule Log On, Uncle John." The gag in the song is that you end up singing "throw the yule long ON Uncle John." I remember singing that song in high school choir. It's such a music-nerd thing for a song like that to be in my head. (Only the music nerds out there will have even heard of P. D. Q. Bach!)

Chicken Dace? Really?

This morning was the trip to IKEA. As expected, Little Girl wanted to play, but didn't want to potty, so she screamed and cried for about 15 minutes in the cart until she realized that we weren't going to let her out, and she might as well stop throwing her fit. Mom and I made sure to mention every few minutes how Little Girl could decide she wants to potty and then next time she could play in the fun kid area with her big sister.

My mom is such a good sport. She took both girls home with her for at least tonight and most of tomorrow. She also took a bunch of little girl sized panties and her own bag of tricks. Maybe Little Girl will do it for her Nanna if she won't do it for Mommy. I should just get used to it now. Little Girl will see me as the enemy for a long time yet. Oh well. As long as the other players involved are in my corner, I'll still be in "control".

As I was gathering the clothes to pack for both girls to go to Nanna's, I was whistling the Chicken Dance song. My big girl came up behind me and started humming along and doing the dance. I didn't even realize she knew the Chicken Dance! Obviously I had that song in my head. Thankfully it's gone now.

Last night at worship team practice, we were just talking about Karen Carpenter for some reason, and last night and today I've had "We've Only Just Begun" and "Close To You" in my head. The power of suggestion is very strong. Maybe now you'll be humming one of those after reading this!

DVR

This morning I woke up with quite an assortment of songs in my head, all thanks to the DVR. We are relatively new to this wonderful piece of technology. TV viewing will never be the same again! When I want to watch something, I set the DVR to record it, then I watch it later (sometimes before the show is over), starting at the beginning and fast-forwarding through commercials. Don't you just love it? And then there are some shows that my husband and I like to watch, but we have no idea when they're on. So we have the DVR set to record those shows whenever they are on, and we watch them whenever we want, sans commercials. It's great.

One show we watch like that is Pop-Up Video, on VH1 Classic. We watched several episodes of that last night before going to bed. So this morning, "Rio," by Duran Duran, "Vogue", by Madonna (YUCK!), and "We Didn't Start the Fire," by Huey Lewis and the News were all in my head, taking turns up front.

When I started this blog, I didn't realize how often the song in my head was a song I really don't like. Such is definitely the case with "Rio." Ugh. Make it stop!! (Now do you see why I have such a tenuous hold on my sanity?)

Potty-Training, Round 2?

My little girl, who is nearly 4 months past her 3rd birthday is one of those kids who refuses to do most things asked of her. Right after her birthday, I had it in mind that we would try potty-training. Well, that went over like a lead balloon. If she's not up for it, she won't do it. With something like going potty, she really does have to be of a mind to do it. I can't MAKE her "make". So I gave up.

This week my mom and I have been plotting round 2. Before any new attempts can succeed, we need Little Girl to be motivated to try. On Thursday, we will go to IKEA, where they have a lovely play area for children of a certain height who are potty-trained. We will show it to her, send her big sister off to play, and then make her ride in the cart while we shop. (I really only have a couple things to pick up there, but we can make the shopping last a long time if necessary.) This is the first time that Little Girl will be denied in a somewhat cruel way just because she is not potty-trained. Hopefully it will help jump-start her motivation. And if not, at least we tried something (and this time it doesn't involve washing panties that are being used like diapers over a 10 day period).

I have just a little snippet of a Dave Matthews Band song going through my head. It's the most annoying of all types of things to go through my head because I can't get my head to play forward to the part where I can recognize it, or get to a finishing point. I'm going a little nutty. I'm stuck in an up-tempo instrumental break with a sax solo. Oh well. Anyone know what song that is?

Life

My heart is still heavy for my high school friend, Tim. It has been several years since we even saw each other, and that was at a funeral for our band director who died suddenly of a heart attack back in 2002. (I was pregnant with my big girl, that's how I remember when it was.) Before then it was probably graduation, or the graduation party afterward back in '96. Anyway, I share that to say that we haven't been particularly close friends since high school, but that doesn't really change the fact that I care about him as a person. I want to reach out, but I'm afraid that it would not be well received. We have been facebook friends for the last several months, so there has been some sort of connection.

(If you're not on facebook, just go sign up. It's free and you'll be amazed at how many people you connect with and stay connected to without all that much effort.)

Life this week is going back to "normal" for our family. Daddy is home, and Nanna & Poppa are also back from their travels. We haven't seen them yet since they got in late last night, and then they're both working today. We'll see them later this evening.

I don't usually follow the financial markets and such, but this weekend, and going into this week, things aren't looking so good. The mortgage mess is spiraling out of control, and the government is determined to put a band aid on it and say it's OK when really all their doing is driving down the value of our money. This article was written over the weekend, and more has taken place since then, with the Fed pledging to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. There is a reason why I don't like to pay attention. It's bad for my blood pressure.

I keep trying to remember some of the funny things that the kids said last week that I shared with my husband the night he came home, but for the life of me the only thing I can remember is that my little girl said she is going to be a "rock girl" when she grows up. She wasn't able to tell me what that means exactly. I hope it has something to do with geology, but I'm not holding my breath. My big girl has been holding steady for the last couple years to the idea of being an astronaut when she grows up. She says she will take me with her when she goes to the moon. I hope NASA is OK with that. It would be a first in the space program to have the astronaut's mommy on board!

So there's a little picture of life today. "I'm So Small" by Fleming and John, as sung to me by my big girl last Friday night is in my head.

Please Pray for my Friend

Please pray for my high school friend. He and his wife were expecting twins, a girl and a boy. She went into early labor, and the babies were born at 24 weeks gestation. The boy did not respond well to the treatments, respirator and such and passed away in their arms only 32 hours after he was born. Their baby girl is expected to be in the hospital for several months until her original due date sometime late in October.

This friend of mine was never open to hearing about God back when we were in school together. I pray this whole horrible situation will open his heart. Please pray with me toward that end.

Hubby Is HOME!!!

My dear husband is home! My big girl and I welcomed him home last night around 9:45. Yes, I let a five-year-old stay up until nearly 10 PM to see her daddy. She was so excited that he was coming home! And she had a surprise for him, which she was excited to share. She got her hair cut on Monday, and we've been saving that as a surprise for him(which is why I didn't post about it, in case he were to read my blog while he was away). It's also a surprise to my parents, but I'm pretty sure they won't read this until after we see them on Monday, so I'm not worried about spoiling anything.

We had a lovely time just talking for about two hours after he came home, and after we got the big girl settled down for bed. I just love times like that. It's what I miss most when he's gone.

Thank you, God, for taking care of him (and us) while he was away. Thank you for bringing him home to us safe and sound!

Never Failed Me Yet

This song is quietly playing in the back of my mind, a subtle underpinning to the goings on around me, whether the radio or TV is on, or the kids are noisy. It's Jars of Clay's "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet," on their album, Who We Are Instead.

Jesus' blood never failed me yet
Never failed me yet
Jesus' blood never failed me yet
This one thing I know
That He loves me so

I hope you're encouraged by this today. He's never failed you either.

That can be a tough pill to swallow when things aren't going right and you feel completely let down. The truth, which doesn't have anything to do with how you feel, is that God hasn't failed you. Whatever pain He's allowing into your life (and mine) is for a purpose, whether to strengthen you (me), teach you (me), or purify you (me).

It's easy to discount words like this when you think they're coming from someone who doesn't know your pain, or you think might not know pain at all. Trust me, I know pain. I may not know your pain specifically, but I have been dealt some blows from which I wasn't sure I'd recover. God has healed me from some of that, and I'm truly on "the other side". But there are other more recent things that still sting.

In March of 2004, when my big girl was 17 months old, I learned I was expecting my second baby. I was thrilled. A few days later, my husband's sister, who has been my friend since we were 11, told the family that she was expecting her first baby. We were due within 2 days of each other. It was so exciting. About two weeks later, she called and asked us to pray for her and her baby. She was experiencing some bleeding. I did pray. I plead to God for the life of her baby, her FIRST baby. I knew that losing her baby would crush her. I asked God that if He had to take one of our babies, that He not take hers. I don't know why I prayed that, but I did. A week later, her bleeding had stopped. And mine had begun. Two weeks after that, at nine weeks pregnant, I miscarried. (During that two weeks, I did go to the doctor, and I had an ultrasound where I saw a tiny little beating heart.)

I blamed myself for praying what I prayed. I blamed God. He knew the ultimate fate of that baby before s/he was conceived. Why did He allow the pain of that loss into my life? What kind of a good God would give you something you want and then take it away?

I wallowed in despair and downright depression for several months after that. The summer of 2004 was very difficult. In July I had pretty much given up trying to get pregnant again because I didn't want to be open to the possibility of losing another baby. When I made that determination, I was already pregnant with my little girl. But then I was caught in a very strange emotional place. I felt bad for feeling happy. I was happy to be pregnant with the new little life inside me, but if I hadn't lost the other one, I wouldn't have this one. And I was afraid. It's so hard to explain to anyone who hasn't been there. Even my husband didn't understand. The one we lost wasn't quite real to him, and he didn't feel it the way I did, which made me feel so very alone in my pain.

I put on a happy face for most of my pregnancy and let the confused, frustrated, angry with God emotions take a back seat. After all, I had another little life to take care of besides my then two-year-old. I received some wise counsel straight out of Matt. 5:4, "Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted." It wasn't until almost two years after my miscarriage (when my little girl was ten months old) that I was able to fully mourn, and receive God's comfort and healing.

I have a niece who is the same age as my child would have been. For three years that is how I saw her. Every time I saw her. It wasn't until this past January that I was able to see her without that thought being in the front of my mind.

Oh how I wish that was the end of my story of loss and pain. But that's enough for now. Jesus blood never failed me, even when I was in the pit of despair. His blood won't fail you either.

What's In My Sick Head

Today's song is a weird one. I woke up this morning with the theme from Blazing Saddles in my head. I can explain this. Yesterday on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, he played a Paul Shanklin parody about Barack Obama to that tune. And now that's what's in my head. (I mean the real Blazing Saddles theme, not the parody. I really don't remember much of the parody other than the tune.)

Today I have no voice. My big girl has already had me repeat things to her because she couldn't hear me speaking to her, and she was standing about six feet away from me. I did what I said I would last night and took some sleepy medicine after I put the kids to bed. I think I fell asleep before my big girl. She usually reads for a little while (with permission) after we put her to bed. I was out like a light at 8:30, and I slept until 8:00 this morning when the girls came in asking for breakfast. And I could go back to sleep right now if there was someone else to be mommy for a while.

Ugh... My head!

I have a lovely head cold today. I just want my brain to go ahead and explode so that the pressure will stop. I have no energy, no appetite, and not quite enough umph to handle the girls. Oh well, what can I do? At least it will be bedtime soon, and then they will be confined to their rooms. (Thank you, God, for moving us into a house where they each have a room!) And then I can take some medicine to knock me out for the night.

In the middle of feeling like this, I had a luncheon this morning/afternoon where I was the featured singer. I was surprised at how well my voice held out. I was able to sing through the crud. By Thursday I predict that my voice will be completely gone, but I'll be feeling better.

To go along with my spacey medicine head, I've got Pink Floyd's "Us and Them" going in my head. It's kind of ethereal and spacey sounding. I feel like I'm floating through the music.

Now to put the kids to bed. And then take a Tylenol PM or Nyqil or something, and syonara.

Yesterday at the Park

Last night was a successful outing to the park. Our church rented a pavilion at the biggest city park in town and set up sound equipment at one end, a hotdog grilling station just to the side, and huge coolers of drinks. Within sight of the pavilion (but out of earshot) was a playground, with no fences or containment beyond the landscaping border to keep the mulch in and grass out. I was so nervous about letting the girls go over there. They played for a while, got red-faced and sweaty, then came back with me to the pavilion while I sang my songs.

Immediately after I finished singing, both girls came to me crying that they wanted to go home. Apparently my little one put her hand in ants, and my big one was just tired of the little one's crying. (She really hates the sound of her sister crying, no matter when or where.) But I hadn't yet sung with the sextet, so we had to wait. I bribed them both to sit at a table with Cokes (in the absence of caffine-free soft drinks). I had the forsight to bring bendy straws with me in my purse so they would be able to drink from the cans without spilling all over themselves. (I think I'll start carrying bendy straws with me all the time. They don't weigh much.) That worked like a charm. Thankfully it didn't seem to have much impact on them being able to go to sleep last night.

Thanks to Shelly and others who helped wrangle my kids, especially while I was singing!

My brain hasn't really settled on a song yet... I'm currently listening to my iTunes in Party Shuffle mode, so we'll see where it lands after I get up and leave the computer for a few hours. Playing now, "I Can't Catch You," by Sixpence None the Richer.

Sidebar

Is anyone out there bothered by my having multiple songs in my head at once? I am sometimes.

Sad

He's gone. My husband just left for his work trip less than 10 minutes ago. I'm sad. I'm thoroughly sad. Before he left, we prayed together and cried together.

One of the songs we did in church this morning was "In You." I don't know who it's by originally (my internet search was unsuccessful). That's the one that's in my head. The words are spot on for what I need right now.

Taking turns with that song, matching my mood, is "Summer's Over," by Jonathan Coulton. It's a sad good-bye song.

Tonight I'm singing "Dips" with the sextet out at the park. That will be fun. I'm also singing two solos with tracks. I have another singing engagement this week where I'll do those two songs, so tonight is a sort of trial run for that. I really need to have those songs in my head this afternoon. More than that, I need to all-out practice!

I'm a little nervous about being out there at the park with no one watching my kids while I sing. I know we'll have friends out there, but it's not their job to watch my kids. That's my job. I just hope I don't lose them. They've been known to wander. Maybe they need jingle bells tied to them or something. Long leashes would work...

My mom just called since I started this post. She and Dad are on the boat, getting ready to sail out from Seattle. I'm glad for them to have a good time. It has lightened my mood a little to talk to her. I'm still sad, but now a little less so.

(If anyone knows more details about "In You," please leave a comment and I'll link the info in a future post. Thanks.)

Which Way the Wind Blows

This morning I found myself laying in bed, mentally and emotionally bracing myself for the week ahead. My husband is leaving tomorrow for a week long business trip. Daddy will be gone all week. The girls will do fine. It's me I'm worried about.

Usually, if Daddy's gone, and Mommy's going crazy, we'd head over to my parents' house and hang out with Nanna and Poppa. They live about 20 minutes away, and have lots of room to play. But they're gone too. They won't be back from their Alaskan cruise until next Sunday (8 days from now). My top two levels of kid support are going to be gone.

Plus I just miss my husband when he's away for so long. When we were dating we went to two colleges that were about an hour and a half away from each other. We'd cry on Sunday saying good-bye and look forward to Friday all week long when we'd get to see each other again. When he travels like this, it brings all that back to me too. I really like him and want him around. I want to make jokes with him and laugh. I want to lay in the dark stroking his back (which he loves- he practically purrs like a kitten!). I want him to pick on me and try to tickle me while I squirm and try to get away. I just want him around. He's my favorite. I know I'll miss him.

And as these thoughts were making their way through my brain, the soundtrack was on a 2nd Chapter of Acts song which really fit, "Which Way the Wind Blows." The chorus says, "You don't know which way the wind blows, so how can you plan tomorrow?"** And then toward the end it changes to, "Jesus knows which way the wind blows, so give Him your tomorrow."

So Jesus, I give You next week. Whatever I've got planned, I'll trust You more than my plan. I'll trust You to bring my husband back home safely to us. I'll trust You to provide for our every need.

** I grew up listening to this song, and always thought that those words were spoken by Jesus in one of the gospels. A lengthy search on the internet showed that not to be the case. Then I searched Proverbs. Again, no luck. But I did find this Messianic verse in Proverbs 30:

4 Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hands?
Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and the name of his son?
Tell me if you know!

I had never noticed that one before. It goes right along with the message of that song, and also what I need to be thinking about going into next week.

Happy 4th of July!

If you want a good cry, read on.

Today I visited the blog of Angie Smith for the first time. I'm sure it's one I'll be reading regularly. I just couldn't stop reading the story of her baby, Audrey Caroline. I won't give away anything so if you want to check it out, you can. I highly recommend it.

I haven't previously shared much of the history of my family, or the deep pains that mark my personal history. It was definitely therapeutic today to read about someone else's life, loves and losses, and I think I may soon be ready to share some of my own. Most of my readers are friends and family, and already know about the things that I'm referring to, but I know that I'll eventually let it all come out here. I think I still have quite a bit of healing to do before I can pour it out here. I want to have a little more of the context of how God worked it out before I go unloading. I'm afraid if I were to do it now that I'd be spilling a pity-party that needs to be over. In time.

Earlier today, after reading about half of Angie's blog, I had the song, "Carry You," in my head. It was written by Angie & her husband, Todd, and couple other people for Audrey. I hope you're moved by it as much as I was.

Splash Park, "No, I can't", & the Table

Today I took the girls to the splash park. We met some friends there, and I invited our new friends next door to come too. It was a silver and gold outing! (You know the song, "Make new friends, but keep the old..." It makes a great round!) As a happy surprise, we happened to see more friends when we got there!

I really wish my little girl wouldn't make every little thing I ask of her into a battle. She completely laid out the little one year old of our surprise friends we found at the park, and would not apologize. She spent some time in time-out after I did the James Dobson shoulder trick on her. My mom used to do that to me, and she got results. I wonder if I'm doing it right. Maybe it will work better when she's a little older.

My super-big, all-time thing I want the most in the whole world right now is for my little girl to stop responding to EVERY request I ask of her with, "No, I can't." I want so badly to remove those words (and mostly the attitude behind them) from her consciousness. Today coming back from the park, I had the girls come in our front door instead of the garage door because I've got my project all over the place in the garage right now. When I asked little girl to come "this way," she said, "I can't go this way." What's the point of arguing that? She ended up doing what I asked, but why waste the breath in protest? Is that just part of being 3 years old? Does she feel a surge of independence every time she argues? Am I somehow reinforcing this behavior? Oh, I so hope that my actions, words, or whatever are not keeping this going. It's like a rock in my shoe type of annoyance to me every time she utters those words. I'm starting to get pretty testy about it. I'll welcome any help on this issue. Please give me some feedback, especially if you've been there, dealt with that, and come out with a sweet kid on the other side.

The project that has taken over my garage is the re-refinishing of the kitchen table. I had a major catastrophe after doing it the first time. The picture to the right is the result from the first finishing job I did on it with latex paint. The picture to below is what happened after that. It all peeled up. I felt sick about it. I haven't been able to tackle that project to do it again for several weeks. It just makes me so sad to have to do it all again. And this time with oil-based products, which are harder to clean up. I'm using a roller AND a brush, a technique I learned watching DIY network, rolling the paint on, then following that with the brush so that it doesn't look like an orange peel texture. It gets the paint more evenly distributed and it makes the brush easier to clean up, with only the ends of the bristles requiring a dip in the paint thinner. Another downside to this go-round is that it all has to be done in the garage. Latex paint has next to no fumes, so I did that work inside, with air conditioning. This time I'm doing the work in the morning, before the 100 degree heat sets in. I know I'll be happy when it's done. I just have to get to that point.

Today's song is still "Dips". God really used that song in a special way last night. It sounds like a silly song, but the message is really good. It's about being so blown away by God's love that it becomes the motivation for sharing with others. God's love for us really is so profound that experiencing it changes everything we care about. Whatever was important before that encounter pales in the light of the eternal, REALLY important things. So I'm really pumped about singing it on Sunday night! Thank you, God, for dipping your hand of love down in my heart!