It’s a Mother’s Day CONTEST!!!!

Come one.  Come all.  Step right up and enter to win a GRAND PRIZE for you or a mother dear to your heart this Mother’s Day.

What would every mother want?  A diamond ring?  No. (Could get lost while playing in the sand at the park!) A new MiniVan!  No. (Take it from my experience, after you hit someone in a minivan, they are not that great any more!)  A dozen roses! No (They wilt in no time, especially if you bought them at Walmart!)

Maybe something to bring joy to her heart.  Something to make her laugh…. and snort… and laugh some more!  Yes, you guessed it!  A Book!  YES!

Yes, a FREE autographed copy of my book Laughing in the Midst of Mothering!  Every mother you know needs a laugh!  This book can be yours (for your mom if you aren’t a mom) by merely entering your name in the comments section of this blog.

You have until May 5th midnight to enter.  On May 6th, after I sleep in, I will randomly draw one name from the list and announce the winner here on MSJ.  I will blast the name for all to see.  The winner will have 24 hours to contact me with an address for where to ship the book.  If person #1 doesn’t contact me, I will draw another name on May 7th.  :o)

After ALL These Years….

After all these years, I have finally figured something out.  Please don’t hold your breath too long waiting in anticipation for this monumental, earth-shattering news.  The back-story first.

With two bathrooms upstairs and a newly acquired princess from Colombia in December 2010, I decided that she could brush her teeth and bathe in the master bathroom, so as to leave more room for her three siblings.  How nice of me.  I’m the nice mom, remember?  I figured it wouldn’t be that much of a hassle due to her usually preening at different hours than her father and me.  Fast-forward four months to me being completely grossed out by the blobby toothpaste all over the cap and drawer where the Crest is kept.

The gross-out feeling is mutual between my new daughter and me.  She is grossed out that hair is stuck in my hairbrush.  I am grossed out by dried, globby toothpaste on the cap and in the drawer.  Deciding not to mention the blue blobs, I got myself a brand spankin’ new tube of Crest ONLY for personal use, and cleared a spot in my medicine cabinet for MY toothpaste where it would remain clean and blob-free.

NOTHING gets past her big brown eyes!  NOTHING!  She asked me THE NEXT DAY, “Why do you have toothpaste up there on the shelf now?”

In a sweet voice (because I’m the nice mom) I replied, “It’s because someone left toothpaste on that tube in the drawer and I don’t want to touch it.”

Her response made me burst out laughing, “Maybe DAD left the toothpaste all over the cap!”  Hahahaha!

Her father and I have been sharing the same tube of toothpaste for 23 years.  If you are a germaphobe, I’m sorry that you now look down your sanitized nose at us.  We are what we are.  So, YES there were new clumps of toothpaste.  YES, the Colombian princess was the culprit…. but not the culprit willing to admit to the messiness.

So what did I figure out after all these years?  My husband is a very neat toothpaste user, for which I am thankful.   I would not be harboring these thankful thoughts if it weren’t for our Colombian Princess joining the family.  :o)  One more blessing of adoption.

 

It’s TRUE!

That ago old adage that I’ve heard since birth uttered from parents, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you” IS TRUE!  Be warned.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  Parenting is not easy, but it is worth it 27 gazillion times more than the pain it brings.  Yesterday was the first time I lived through “this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you” from the parenting side of the equation.  Details need to be kept to a minimum, but a HUGE decision was made by my husband and myself that not only affects one of our children, but is one of those examples to all of our children who will remember forever, “When mom and dad ask you to do something… they mean it.”

I think I cried more than the child did.  My husband called a couple of times throughout the day and asked, “How are you doing?” not how is the child doing.  The child will be fine… and stronger for it, we hope.  I was a mess.  I always want to be known as the dream builder, not the dream crusher…. but sometimes when we see discrepancies between what we have taught and how the child is behaving…. dreams have to be put on hold.  We have to go in reverse for a bit and re-learn a few character issues that were obviously taken too lightly.  Delay is not denial… I learned that from my baby sister.  It applies here.  Delay is also dumb when we are not getting our own way… which leads us back to character issues AGAIN.

This reminds me of when my mother, in a flustered and frustrated situation, would tell us, “Go to your room and holds hands with yourself.”  When I became a mother, I completely understood the meaning of that.  I changed it up a bit for the next generation and have been known to relay loudly, “Go to your room and pray to Jesus that He makes you nice.  And don’t come out until He does.”  It’s all good.

It’s all about character.  How you behave when no one is watching is KEY.  Priorities are KEY. Being obedient is KEY.  Not just for our kids, but for all of us.  Blessing follows obedience…. every stinkin’ time.  God is so good.

 

A Crazy Lady

A close friend of mine has six kids.  I have thought many times about how crazy I would be if I had six kids.  Then I realized that one of hers is away at college…. so there are only five at home.  (See, my math skills from kindergarten are still functioning!)  Five kids still seems like a lot in my mind.  That’s a lot of mouths to feed.  She also homeschools… and that is a lot of kids to school.  Then it dawned on me that I have four kids.  That is only one less than five kids.  I’m so close to being crazy in my own mind… it’s a little scary. 

That was just one of my brilliant realizations as I was away from my four kids at a scrapbooking retreat this past weekend.  See how relaxed and focused I can be if uninterrupted? 

God has been showing up in all the details again… yes, again.  Remember a few years back when I had the word/topic of “honor” brought before my blinkin’ eyes six times before I realized the God moment???  Well, praise be to Baby Jesus and the angels who watch over us, this time it only took THREE times for me to catch on to “Praying for my Children.”  Our pastor spoke on intentional prayer last weekend… especially about parents praying.  Then my Dad showed up on my doorstep with another book in hand called The Blessing of Obedience, an amazing autobiography of a man and wife who prayed and heard from the living God.  THEN… I had already caught onto the subject, but simply to confirm my new direction of focus, I spotted only one workbook of interest at a second-hand store this weekend…. The Power of a Praying Parent.  And I bought it for $1.49. 

The six childrened-friend was also away with me and I mentioned this pattern of focussed prayer for my children.  She acknowledged that it may be what is needed NOW in my life to fend off what might have happened had I not listened in church, read my dad’s book and found the used workbook … all on prayer for my kids.

Amen.  That’s it.  Amen.

I’m a Visual Learner

Pinterest led me to this fabulous idea for watching the pounds disappear!  Of course, the one posted was in beautiful glass vases with pink, pearlized white and clear glass gems and glittery hot pink stickers for “Pounds Lost” and “Pounds to Go!”  Mine is the hillbilly-what-do-we-have-lying-around-the-house version.  My eight-year-old wanted to know where her marbles are… that she has never played with …. EVER.  Figures.  “They are being utilized in a highly efficient manner to keep your mother focused on the goal!”

Adjustments.  That is what I made this week…. adjustments to my overall weight loss goal.  When I began this journey, one-hundred pounds seemed enormous…. well, because it was.  It is.  I can’t even lift 100 lbs.  But I was carrying it around every weary-three-pieces-of-pizza-and-the-whole-chocolate-bar-loving day.  So, as I began to study the BMI chart (which I don’t exactly take as gospel truth because it says my stocky-barrel-chested husband should weigh 160 lbs.  He was skinny at 185 when I met him 27 years ago, thankyouverymuch.) I decided to aim for losing 104 pounds.  Down four little pounds from the original goal.  It’s all good.  And I’m okay with it.  My big-boned self-image may make another adjustment in a few months when I get there.  A flashback to high school and my hip bones sticking out made me realize another adjustment may be required as the time approaches.

In the mean time, I’m slowly moving the marbles to the LOST jar!  33 to go!  Whooo Hoooooo!

The First Time

The first time I remember realizing that I was not a slim girl was in Mrs. Johnson’s third grade class at P.A. Walsh Elementary School in Morgan Hill, California.  I was EIGHT years old, for heaven’s sake.  For some reason… maybe we were learning how to measure things??… she weighed and measured everyone in the class.  AND she wrote the results on a L A R G E chart for all to see how they measured up.  Here we are in all of our 1974 glory.

That’s me in the back row…second tallest…with the tasteful mustard-yellow sweater dress …. without the glasses.  On the larger side of the scale is where I fell… heavily.  Pun intended.  The number 101 sticks out in my mind.  I weighed 101 pounds.  The only other kid in the WHOLE blinkin’ class that also had three digits on the chart was Raul.  He’s the kid in the back row on the far left…. we never said it aloud… but in our minds he was the fat kid in class…. the chart didn’t lie.  We all liked Raul and would never hurt his feelings, but kids do notice extremes and differences…. and triple digits on the chart. Raul weighed in at 103.  Slightly more than me.  Me and Raul…. the only kids over 100 pounds in Mrs. Johnson’s class. Did the other kids consider me the fat girl?  It never dawned on me until this moment. I don’t know. Hopefully they simply considered me “good German stock”… without a trace of German heritage.

Ok, but I WAS TALL for my age!  Height counts for more weight, right?  Right!  And our size didn’t dictate who are friends were at that age.  The girls I remember sharing tootsie-pops with while we swung on the bars were Johanna (pink shirt, top right), and Michelle (in a dress with white socks, front row).  If my fading memory serves me correct, the three of us enjoyed spending time with the three boys to the right of the teachers, Tony, Frankie and Jesse.  I could probably pick up each one of them and swing them around over my head.  I was tall AND strong.

The first time…. and sadly not the last time… I remember weighing more than everyone in the room.  Thankfully, that is over now.  Forever!

I’m Finally Making a Colombia Scrapbook

Yes, we’ve been home with the Colombian princess for almost nine months…. next Thursday, it’ll be nine months.  I’m finally getting around to making a scrapbook of our trip.  I’ve spent much mental anguish on the Colombia scrapbook topic over the past six months. (The first three months home I just needed a nap.  That’s all.)  I know there are LOTS of photos.  I know there are LOTS of photos that I want to include.  I also know my scrapbooking speed is not what it used to be in the days of old when I got 65 pages completed on a weekend retreat.  I’ve weighed the digital vs. traditional issues too.

This morning my problems were solved when I opened my email and Snapfish had sent me a free digital hard-cover scrapbook.  Well, the first 20 pages are free.  I was all over it…. but the deadline is Sept. 21.  My husband and I are leaving on a jet plane in three days… and not coming home until the 22nd.  So today, instead of teaching my pupils (well I did have Nora do math… and the others are pretty self-motivated at the moment)…. (yes, those were guilt justifying comments)… I uploaded 296 photos and put them in a digital book.  BAM!  Done!  Well, almost.  I only did half of the journaling… and it’s too late in the day to write coherent sentences, much less remember the Spanish names of places and fruits.

Into my closet I went searching for my journal from our trip to South America.  One paragraph smacked me between the eyes and I want to share it with you.  For all those who have adopted, want to adopt, are trying to adopt and are thinking they might adopt…. here’s some cold, hard facts to think on:

“As I drove home the seven hours from the Colombian consulate in Beverly Hills, I had one of those God-moments where I realized that this whole adoption is not about me… or Rick and I… or even Nora.  It’s about God taking care of His children – about His children taking one step at a time, obeying the call on their lives – about God providing everything we need – far before we figured out what we needed.”

 

This was taken right after we landed in Bogotá!

That was so philosophical of me…. and rare… here’s the next page in the journal for your pure enjoyment.

(This was the night before we were leaving Cali to fly to Bogotá.) “As late as it was after packing, 12:30 a.m., I simply could not fall asleep.  The thought that Nora was leaving behind her life as she knows it – kept me awake.  One reassuring thought was that we LOVED Cali SO much – we will return someday.  I also wondered at 2:30, 3:15, 4:12 and from 4:35 on…. would Nora have motion sickness? Would the airplane terrify her?  Did we check under all the beds? And finally – I was awake at 5:00… “ready” for our adventure to Bogotá.”  No wonder I needed three months of naps!

My Name is Linda and I’m a Project Junky

And I’m OK with that!  I ALWAYS have a project or two or seventeen on the go.  When I don’t have projects, I feel lost.  I wander the house in my pajamas wondering what I should be doing.  Lately, since returning from Colombia with our new daughter, my project in my head was “keep life moving forward as normally as possible.”  That’s pretty well all I’ve done for five weeks…. and it’s been exhausting.  We are homeschooling.  We are going to church and to our neighborhood group.  I am grocery shopping and going to the library weekly.  Oh, and I’m teaching once a week….. Arizona History to a bunch of homeschooled high school kids.  (I guess you could consider it a project!)  But it has taken me almost 3 weeks to read the novel sitting on my bedside table.  They usually only sit there for 4-5 days.

However, (notice the switch from survival mode to productive mode here!) my mother found a darling little wooden chair on clearance (of course) with a cupcake-shaped back that will fit Nora’s tea-table perfectly!  Originally I thought that two chairs were sufficient, but her teddy bear always occupies one, so guests sit on the floor.  Three chairs are needed.  The cupcake chair needs some sanding and painting and tightening and hole-filling.  A PROJECT!

Last month my sister was in town putting on a bridal shower for her best friend.  My sister is the decorologist for parties!  She’s the bomb, baby.  Her creativity reminded me how fun it is to decorate and throw parties.  And lo and behold, a friend of mine has a birthday next week!  She thinks I’m taking her to breakfast, but I’m doing a full-blown pink and turquoise owl-themed party.  Today I’m off to find cutesy plates and polka-dotted napkins and ribbons and placemats.  A PROJECT! 

Here are just the cupcakes my sister made for the shower:

A   N   D  .  .   .  .  .  I have once again been inspired to start writing.  A little birdy put the seed in my heart… the watering began… and I’m off writing on another project.  This is a book that I have had on my heart for a long time.  About two or three years ago I was having visions of stories running amuck in my mind which prompted me to get out of bed at 2:47 in the morning, find a notepad and jot down ideas.  Locked in my master bathroom for an hour, I outlined the entire book!  This week I dusted it off.  A PROJECT!

My name is Linda and I’m a Project Junky!

School Spirit!

Another quality childhood vandalism story for you today!  I was in the third grade and I attended a Live Oak High School, in Morgan Hill, California, in their program called Kiene Schul, or some such German spelling.  The marching band, the cheerleaders and the pep rallies made a BIG impact on me as an 8-year-old with starry eyes.  I loved the team spirit.  I loved the common bond. I loved everyone in matchy matchy colors of gold and dark green!

Imagine my excitement one afternoon in our family garage when I found spray paint cans in the gold and green colors of Live Oak!?!  My creativity was bursting at the seams.  I felt compelled to decorate something to show my patriotism and school pride.  Venturing out to the backyard with a can in each hand, I looked around for a blank canvass to express my creative genius.  It was as if destiny guided me….. the ENTIRE backyard was surrounded by a newly constructed fence with virgin boards calling my name.  Heaven.

Several moments passed before my design was settled in my brain… and then I began, slowly and methodically…. one spray dot per fence plank… alternating colors… gold…. green…. gold…. green.   Yes, I did the entire fence! 

Imagine my parent’s joy when they discovered my artistic masterpiece…. and in the school colors!

My summer was spent with sandpaper in hand…. several pieces of sand paper…. singlehandedly……. as I sanded every blinkin’ board with the stupid dots on them.  At that time I had not read Tom Sawyer, much to my later disappointment.

Don’t Try this at Home!

For some strange reason, this past week my children asked if I got in trouble much as a kid.  What brought on this bit of inquisitiveness, I’m not sure.  Visions of grandeur danced through my head as I recalled various adventures that I could lay on ’em.  Then I realized, no, I didn’t get in trouble that much because my older brother got in A LOT of trouble…. so I walked around the house telling my mommy, “I be good!”  Over and over and over.  And I was good.  :o)

So this happy tale emerged after much prayer and supplication:  my parents had vacated the house leaving my 13-year-old brother in charge of me (11) and our little sister (6).  We decided to be helpful and empty the garbages from upstairs…. (with ulterior motives, for sure!)… so we could burn the rubbish in the fireplace in the family room.  Fires are so exhilarating, especially when you’re home alone!  My brother lit the matches and started the newspaper tubes that we had diligently rolled up just like Dad always did.  We waited until it was nice and hot before we started adding the garbage…. which included: toilet paper tubes, kleenex, q-tips, junk mail, odds and ends…. AND…. an empty aerosol can of hairspray.   OOOooooohhhhh!

We didn’t bother closing the little chain-mail curtain because we were still loading in the trash when it happened……. quicker than bottle rockets on the 4th of July, the can exploded and shot out of the brick fireplace.  We were terrified!  We ducked for cover!  We shielded our heads and faces!  We screamed like girls!  The can hit the popcorn ceiling and then came to a smoking landing on the tri-level, multi-colored shag carpet, where it sizzled and then fizzled on the far side of the hide-a-bed couch (that I am the proud owner of to this day!) 

We waited for it to cool down before we tried to pick it up, but it was sort of stuck to the melted carpet.  My brother did pull hard enough to dislodge it and then I carefully trimmed the burned carpet to a uni-level, non-torched height.  I remember the can leaving a mark on the ceiling, but I can’t remember how we covered it up.  That was 33 years ago, okay?!  I remember thinking that we could have put someone’s eye out with the shooting hairspray can, and we never repeated that fiasco.  Safety first!  Or at least second!

Reminds me of Back to the Future when Marty tells his 1950’s parents to go easy on their future son when he burns the livingroom carpet!