Lookie There!

I was trying to link up to my current article in Focus on the Family Magazine this month when what should my googling eyes find but an old one in AFRICA. Fun, fun.

Now if I could just figure out whether the current one is up somewhere.

Can't resist "free"

Because they seem to think a granola bar can replace ice cream in snack value, and because Julie sent me, I'm sending you.

Well, that and Charming won't go to sleep so I have to do something while he pats my leg in a most charming manner.

Hey, it's a free cookie (or in my case a trail bar or some such).

Why is that again?

Somebody remind me why it is that I'm giving up caffeine for a child who still won't sleep?

My caffeine consumption is resting just about as close to nil as I can go and still function, but I can not detect even the slightest increase in sleep for the kiddo. So, not only is he NOT sleeping, I'm running into walls.

I heard that caffeine has a half life of 6 hours. I have an awful feeling that I've pumped this child so full of caffeine, his won't expire for 143 years.

With that in mind, I may as well keep drinking it.

Right?

RIGHT?!?

Forget the Human Torch

Able to stay awake for six months straight!

With no full night of sleep in sight!

Producing food 24/7!

Muscles of iron (Especially on the left bicep and shoulder!)!

Able to doze in unnatural positions day or night!

And while reading long memorized picture books!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you....

The Human Bottle!

Because I say "Pepsi"

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English 10% Midwestern 10% Upper Midwestern 10% Yankee 0% Dixie

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

In case you're curious...

Charming is still puking up squash.

Un-flippin-real.

Where's My Harley?

And So It Begins

This afternoon, Eldest came home from school and noticed that I brought High School Musical home from the library.

::gasp::"You got High School Musical?!?!"::big grin::

Are you kidding me? I picked it up because we couldn't get a sitter last Friday evening due to HSM2 premiering. Since I'd never seen 1, I figured I should know what the big deal was.

I had no idea that my SIX year old SON would be remotely interested. I had no idea that he had a CLUE what HSM was.

This is what you get when you put your kids in school. Apparently HSM is the BIG THING in the six year old crowd. Who knew?

Weaning off Caffeine, Day 1

After a nightmare of napless days, I've decided Charming has been exposed to too much caffeine and I will have to quit. Much to my dismay. When he was littler he slept whether I had caffeine or not, so I got a bit lax in my consumption. Now I realize I've stepped it up to insane amounts of legal stimulant.

On Sunday I only had one cup of coffee first thing in the morning...because I never have time to savor the first cup much less the second. Having survived the morning with only one, I only had one soda in the afternoon.

Yes, I was in bed by 10, but I made it through the day without a headache and I thought I was on my way.

Yesterday was my first official Wean Yourself Off Caffeine day. I ONLY had ONE cup of coffee rather than savoring the whole pot all morning. When it was time to pour my second cup I poured, instead, a glass of green tea (yes, I know it is caffeinated, I said I was weaning). Yesterday, total, I had one cup of coffee, two tea bags worth of green tea (that I used to make four glasses of iced tea), and one soda.

I do realize that sounds ridiculous.

I don't know that it accomplished anything except weaning myself off liquid sugar (which I am also attempting to do), but I congratulated myself anyway (especially when Hubs noticed that there was an unopened 2 liter of Pepsi cooling in the fridge and expressed shock).

But this morning, my head is already aching.

I've already had my ONE CUP of coffee.

The previously mentioned cold Pepsi is calling my name.

And somehow I don't think that taking 2 Excedrin (whose primary ingredient is caffeine) is going to help my situation any. Sure it might stop the headache, but then I might as well just have my second cup of coffee.

I'd rather be sleeping.

Last night I wasted two hours of my life watching a movie that came highly recommended. It hadn't been on 20 minutes before my legs started twitching. I'd get up to dish ice cream and Hubs would pause the movie. I'd get up and check on the kids and Hubs would pause the movie.

Usually, when I come back from dealing with a crier, I think, "Why didn't he pause the movie?" Last night I just wanted to movie to be over.

And it wasn't bad. Relatively clean. Relatively humorous. Some unresolved plot lines (I think they thought it would make the movie better for some bizarre reason). But overall not a terrible movie.

I'm wondering when I will quit weighing the quality of a movie against the sleep I'm losing to watch it.

I've been squashed!

Tonight Charming tried squash for the very first time. He loved it, made pleased faces and inhaled the jar.

And proceeded to puke back up twice as much.

How, I do not even pretend to understand.

Methinks there is a reason I don't do baby food.

The Woman I Want to Be

Ok, my title isn't true. I don't want to be her. I want to be funny like her. I strive to make my pathetic existence sound hilarious, but most of the time it just sounds whiny.

And I wonder why Princess whines all the time.

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, I give you the woman who made herself famous by selling Pokemon cards (that her children sneaked into her grocery cart) on ebay, and her blog that now gets 10000 hits a day. Or an hour. Who knows?

Cost of Gas

Yesterday I spent $3.43 on a pint of Haagen-Dazs. That comes to $27.44 a gallon.

Every sinful bite was worth it.

I'm going to quit complaining about the $2.66 gallon of gas that takes me 27 miles on 100 degree days.

Laughable

I find it utterly hilarious that there are two people on the face of this earth that think I cleaned something this week!

Aside from the occasional dish that I washed (in the dish soap I've used for going on 12 years) and laundry (using All Free and Clear like always), I'll I have accomplished is changing, feeding and holding Charming. (The fact that my family has eaten at all is due in no small part to my frequent visits to Your Other Kitchen.)

This child simply must learn to crawl before I go berserk.

Then again, maybe the mold has taken over and my hands are peeling due to osmosis. It certainly has been humid enough this week for osmosis to occur through the air...and for mold to grow....even if I choose to pretend it isn't.

Speaking of humidity, my childhood was spent in Southwestern Kansas. Where it doesn't rain. And there is no mold. And my hands peeled like crazy. As I have changed NOTHING (but diapers), and have cleaned NOTHING (but bottoms), I'm going to continue to assume this is stress and hope it passes long about week two of the big kids in school. Maybe week three. I do still have to teach.

However, I am going to slather on some benadryl cream and see if it helps! You never know.

It's Official, I'm Stressed

Back in my junior high and high school days my finger tips and palms itched and peeled all the time. I was, of course, mortified that my hands were peely and I did my best to hide them. It was weird, you know? They weren't rashy. They just had a really deep "itch" (for lack of a better word) and the skin just flaked off. My mom told me that hers used to do that, and when she graduated from college they just quit. She always chalked it up to stress.

One day, some time in college, I realized my hands no longer peeled. Which is funny if you consider how obsessed I was with grades (and making sure they were as close to perfect as possible). I thought of myself as stressed, but I wasn't apparently.

On a related note, just this morning Hubs and I were remembering the "good times" in college. I mentioned that I missed the camaraderie. I really didn't have that many of my own friends. I had acquaintances that I called friends, but I couldn't find most of them today. They bar hopped on the weekends to search out men and I searched out my man and we ate Doritos and drank Pepsi in front of "Friends." I got very used to being the classroom friend or the study partner. Really I've never been much of anyone's friend beyond the event in which we shared since grade school. I think it's the way I'm wired. I'm content with a book most of the time and it's a real effort to put together an extracurricular gathering. (I took the spiritual gifting assessment and Hostess is NOT my gifting by any stretch (My MIL, on the other hand, could write the book)). I think maintaining friends is stressful to me. Especially in the formative years when friends are your everything.

However Hubs did have friends. Also classroom friends, but since he was in engineering his classroom hours extended to about 4AM rather frequently. I often brought him dinner and we ate together. Before long the whole class adopted me as the resident wife. I'd bring in a casserole and some paper plates and they would decimate it. His friends became my friends. And now that he works at an office, his friends are his friends and I miss the camaraderie. Because these men have wives and don't need me to cook. Nor would they eat what I cook because I use butter and sugar liberally.

Hmmmm, the point of that? I think interpersonal relationships stress me out and I didn't stress about them in college. I think that was my point.

Anyway.

The last couple of days my fingertips have been itching like crazy and I noticed last night that one was peeling. This morning they are all peeling and my palms are itching also. Since NOTHING chemical has changed in my life (indicating allergies or some other sensitivity) I'm crediting stress.

I didn't miss this. It was a vague memory that I would have been happy to keep that way. I hope that whatever is stressing me goes away.

Maybe it is lack of sleep? I don't know. So weird.

And then I read something like this prayer, and am further encouraged.

Bring the Rain

As it turns out, the issues I thought I had Sunday were small potatoes compared with what was coming. Thankfully God prepared me. How I wish, now, that all I had to worry about was the nursery system and the nursing mom's room and the catch 22 for the mother of the 5 month old.

Hubs and I lost a pant load of money this week. I'm tempted to type the number because it, quite possibly, would make most of you audibly gasp. I would make me audibly gasp if, say, I wasn't numb. I like to have that effect on people (shame!). However, sticking with the "we aren't giving anyone numbers" philosophy that we set forth (so that if this deal took place no one would treat us differently), I'll let you use your imagination.

Now you are probably thinking much larger than it really is. I think that might have back fired. Whatever.

Funny, I say we lost it, but the issue isn't that we lost it, it is that we never got it in the first place. It was looking really good. And we were really careful to not spend it before we got it. But as the week has worn on, reality is setting in. We'd mentally spent it.

Gone is the new carpet. I knew that Monday. And I consoled myself and Hubs that Charming has to be potty trained anyway. No big loss. We would survive. And gone are the new kitchen counters, but frankly, I'm used to the chipped yellow.

However.

Gone is the aquarium that I planned to buy for the science class I'm teaching this year.

Gone are the funds for the adoption I hoped to complete next spring.

Gone the foundation we'd hoped to set up to help others pay for adoption expenses, building orphanages, and funding missions trips.

Gone the camera I wanted to buy to feed video to the nursing mom's room.

Gone the 45th anniversary trip I hoped to buy for my parents.

Gone the shoe store gift certificate I planned to buy for the best babysitter EVER (who just got engaged and, as my mom once said, no woman should ever get married until she's bought all the shoes she wants, because men don't get it).

Gone the elaborate Christmas presents that I would finally get to buy for our extended families (after years of being the skimpy gifts under the tree). (Interestingly, I"m not disappointed for my kids who get way more than they ever need already--from said generous extended family members.)

Gone silly little things like the frozen custard double date I promised a friend when the deal went through and the more expensive trip to Houston's, my FIL's favorite restaurant, ON US, for once.

But, you know, it is the custard date and the aquarium that put me over the edge into a funk. Thirty dollars. It is the thirty dollar items that I miss the most right now. I'm back to not being able to do the thirty dollar things.

We eat well, and, as a friend told us this weekend, it isn't like we are living in a cardboard box by the river. We have it really good. But we have it really good because we don't do the thirty dollar things.

Ugh. I didn't mean to make this a poor poor pitiful me.

My point was that God prepared me. When the bad news started trickling in on Monday, I was okay. We have it good.

When Hubs and I were discussing Tuesday whether it was faith to keep expecting the deal to happen or to let it go without a fight, we didn't have an answer.

And yesterday morning I heard Mercy Me's "Bring the Rain" with new ears. It's been an encouraging song for me for several months (I think I posted about it a couple months ago) but this time a new line jumped out at me.

"...if that's what it takes to praise you, Jesus bring the rain."

That was my prayer yesterday. Not, "please God, please let the company sell." Not, "give me the courage to face this disappointment." Not "infect those jerks with boils." Just "if this is what it takes to praise you..."

That continues to be my prayer.

Interestingly, there has been a lot more prayer and praise this week also.

As one of the partners said, we are cash flow positive, these guys weren't the savior of our company. They certainly aren't the savior of us. And as much as I would have liked to "use the money for good" and hoped that we would, maybe we wouldn't have and God was saving us from ourselves. Maybe He'll use this to make even a bigger deal. And maybe we needed to know that our money wasn't needed to solve all the problems that we'd hoped to solve by throwing money at them.

Like He told me on Sunday: If you depend on man (US, for example) you get a man's solution. If you depend on prayer, you get God's solution. I'm sure His solution is much better anyway.

Meanwhile, we would welcome prayer. The disappointment is great. And if you wanted to throw in a few boils for the other guys...

Nah.

Just When I've Climbed on my High Horse

I've never said Satan isn't smart. Except for that minor little compulsion to be better than God, I think he's a crafty creature. I'm certain he is the reason I hate Sundays.

No one annoys me like they do on Sundays. I'm never as tired as I am on Sundays. (HA! I just typo'd Sindays. For me they are!) I'm never as cranky as I am on Sundays. And I'm never as annoyed at "the church" as I am on Sundays.

Yesterday morning I was extrapolating to Hubs on the position I feel I've been shoved in to at church. As I ranted, I got more and more worked up. I just don't even want to go to church these days because of this situation. As he reminds me, I always feel this way when I have a nursing infant and we just push through the pain. I know it. He knows it. And he has even been married to me long enough to know that I'm just ranting and will eventually brush my teeth and get in the car to go.

Yesterday was no exception, except he and I decided it really was a legitimate problem that needed to be addressed. So, as I brushed my teeth, we were discussing what we needed to do and to whom we needed to talk.

I get to church and up pops Ma M. who says "If you depend upon men, you will get a man's solution. If you depend upon prayer, you will get God's solution."

Smackdown!

Before worship was over I was weeping. It has been quite a while when I've cried in church NOT over what I was aggravated about (be it sleep deprivation or inconsiderate family members) but just because I could feel God actually cared.

We sang "All in All" which is an oldie. But when we came to the "sung it a hundred times" lines of "when I fall down You pick me up, when I am dry You fill my cup" my tear ducts dumped. I am always falling (and had been berating myself for the previous 7 minutes about not praying about the situation that I was certain I needed to handle) and most certainly dry. One friend told me once that she saw me as a cup with those last three drops at the bottom and the straw making that sucky sound, but not getting anything.

My lands, that song wasn't talking about being thirsty (to me anyway) and getting a drink...I am the drink but am totally dry. I need Him to fill me up.

So, even though I am a wretched Sunday morning sinner, God touched me yesterday. I just thought I should share. Because even when we don't think it is possible, it happens anyway.

Coincidence?

Call it coincidence, but Charming slept so much better last night that I think I will continue the rice cereal trick. I have always believed it to be hokey, but inevitably I try it with all my kids. This is the first time I've noticed any change in their sleeping habits.

He's got me so well trained, that I kept waking to make sure he was ok. I think he was even up to nurse twice, which shows you the sad state of affairs we were in.

Rejoice With Me!

Charming ate rice cereal tonight and wanted more. No gagging. No spewing. No crying. No dirty looks.

I have hope for my future.