Stars on My Eyelashes

So every year we have a harvest party for the kids at sprout central where they can dress up and so can we (as long as there are no scary costumes) and we have a fun, lesson free day. Usually I just throw on a football jersey and bring my football and go as a fan or a player. Well, this year I decided to really go all out. The kids told me I should dress up as a princess, which I considered, but I finally decided that my evening gown that I had planned to wear was too nice to risk taking it into the DMZ (Defecation Madness Zone). Soooooooo I opted to go as a fairy Godmother instead, that dress would be much less of a blow to replace if it became soiled with....shall we say, a toddler's "homemade goodness". ICK!! Anyway, so I  was able to get my hands on some giant fairy wings, a wand, a wig, purple glitter eyeshadow and some false eyelashes with stars on them, pictured to the right. I had a blast and the kids liked it and so did the parents....(no there will be no photographic evidence forthcoming..lol)
As the day progressed, and the children became even more insane and we became physically drained, my wings, silver butterfly shoes and wand all came off.......but the false eyelashes stayed on until late that night. Everywhere I went I kept seeing the little stars glitter out of the corner of my eyes. If you've ever had a rogue fuzzball attach to an eyelash you know what I mean. It can be very distracting as it is constantly interrupting your line of vision. Well, if you have been a long time reader of my blog you know by now that I am ALWAYS looking for little teachable moments....ways that God can speak to me about something or perhaps encourage others. This one was a teachable moment for me.
  Soooooooo late Friday night I was asking God what I should share here at AMH next and then I looked up and there again were those little stars. I thought about it and asked Him if that was it and felt the familiar nudge to move forward. So as my heart listened to Him I was reminded of how earlier in the day I was exhausted and drained with the children. I felt so frustrated...these little blessings from God that I enjoy playing with and teaching and listening to when they play....these same little people had made me feel like......well.....if you saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ...that scene where Davey Jones calls for the kraken....and the pirates all scream, "..NOOOOOO!!!!!" and run terrified to escape it....yeah..THAT is how they made me feel Friday...lol.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job, I love working with the sprouts and I love working with Christians...such a VAST difference from working out in the secular world. I really have no room to complain..but I'm going to be honest, I just wanted to get away from them....I didn't want to hear another cry, another whine, another little voice calling my name, "Miss Fwan.....Miss Fwaaannnnnn..." I didn't want to clean another juice spill or another muck butt, I didn't want to be kind or loving or gentile...I didn't want to be surrounded by children. **sigh** I wanted a Calgon moment!
So I was less than Mary Poppins as I counted down the hours to go home and THAT is what God reminded me of. Ohhhhhhhh how I hate when I realize I missed it...which happens far more often than I would like to admit.
So what is the connection? Well, seeing those stars in the line of my vision reminded me that is how I am SUPPOSED to see God. He should be so present with me that He is constantly in my line of vision....wherever I go, wherever I look..I should see Him just like I kept seeing those little stars on my eyelashes. It's in seeing Him that I will then be moved to act like Him. I forgot that Friday...and plenty of days really...but I want to get better at that. I'm better than I used to be, but I have a long way to go. Thankfully God has more patience with me than I do with a herd of stampeding children.
So, do you feel like you need to have those Godly stars on your eyelashes too sometimes? Well, be encouraged.....there's hope for us. We just need to meditate on keeping our mind on Christ...easier said then done sometimes in this frenzied world...but we must keep our lines of communication open with our heavenly Dad. We must go to Him as soon as we feel that frustration and give Him praise and ask Him for grace and to see through His eyes. He will be faithful to do it if we just ask Him to.

Philippians 2:5 (Amplified Bible)

⁵Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:]

A weekend in the Life

Well I decided that for the sake of my own sanity and to prevent burnout, I will take the weekends off from blogging. My original intention had been to blog every day, but I think wisdom is to refrain from it.
So, a quick weekend in review...

     You may have noticed a new link in the left column of this blog titled "One Year Bible Online". I put it there in case any of you are interested in joining me and my entire church in reading through the Bible in a year. It's broken down into very user friendly 15 minute daily readings and if you follow the link you will also see it's from the New Living Translation which is in the language of today. Much more user friendly for those of you that aren't frequent Bible readers or for those of you that may have tried reading it years ago, but got a bit frustrated with the old English. So if you've ever wanted to do this and just haven't gotten around to it, or felt a bit overwhelmed then join me and we can do this together. Feel free to contact me with questions or if you want support.
      So Saturday I joined Ann and a few other ladies from church in taking all of the Christmas decorations down at both campuses. I thought it was going to take much longer than it did, but we were done in record time. Afterward I came home and still had the energy to take down and put away all of our own Christmas decorations.  Now we have a tiny house, more of a bungalow really...so even though I love Christmas and love decorating for it, I'm pretty frugal with my decor otherwise it would be far too cramped. So we have FAR less than the church does, you would think it would take me not time at all to pack it all away. LOL....NOT! Since I've been in my de-cluttering and cleaning mode lately, there was no reason why it shouldn't extend to the extra Christmas decor before I have to drag it back to the attic. I began my decor D-day at 4 in the afternoon.......I finished at around 1 am. After giving away 6 large bags and boxes of excess decor and then condensing about 8 remaining tubs, bins, baskets, bags and boxes of various sizes I got it down to only 2 large tubs, 1 small tub and 2 boxes.....along with the giant storage bag the tree and wreaths go in. Not bad....thank God it's a year before I need to drag them back out. LOL

   Sunday was nice, Lori has been in town visiting and we got to spend a few precious hours with her last night before she had to leave for SC this morning. She moved down there a few months ago and quite honestly I'm praying she comes back soon. ;) There are precious few people in my innermost circle of what I consider to be the true definition of an intimate friend, those that are considered close enough to be family, she is one of them. Having her move so far away and then come to visit I realize just how much I am thankful for her. She's crazy (in a good way) and irreverent, but also honest and transparent and would give you her last dollar if she felt you needed it more than her. She is the kind of friend I hope and try to be. She doesn't care if you're rich or poor, have a little or a lot, are refined or not...you're God's child and that's good enough for her. She's sort of a modern day Melanie Wilkes from Gone With the Wind. Being judgmental isn't in her blood.  She accepts people the way they are and offers loving friendship that is completely unconditional...in short, she reflects the same love and kindness that Christ does. That sets the bar pretty high....and I'm glad for it, I need that kind of standard to reach for. Love ya and miss ya Lor....come home soon!

Today was the first day back at sprout central after Christmas vacation. Amazing how 8 days away from total toddler anarchy can make you miss the little rugrats. Yeah there were some I didn't miss....mmmm.......well, truthfully just one I didn't miss....but I'll be good and not go there. LOL
The rest however I missed greatly. It was nice to be back with them and with the girls I work with. Nothing really tremendously eventful happened with them today...honestly they were all very quiet. It was kind of amusing because they had been away from us for a little over a week they had to readjust to being back with us. So it was a nice, quiet day...nobody got duct taped to the wall...lol.
Well, that's enough for today........hope all of you had a great weekend and a pleasant Monday.

                     

The Week In Review

WOW...what a phenomenal week! So let me catch you up to speed with a quick rundown of the highlights.

• We spotted two hot air balloons floating over our downtown area so we caught up with them and as Ben drove underneath I took some great shots.
• I finally got my CPR and first Aid certifications in so now I can save somebody's life and not get sued..oh yeah!! Only took a month and a half after the class to get it...INSANE!!!
  
• My father in law went into and came out of the hospital yet again. Thankfully he is ok again.
• We had a meeting with the hospital in regards to my mother n law passing away. We finally got our chance to confront all of the department heads and tell them our concerns about care and lack thereof. They seemed to listen...so that was good...plus we just got to vent which we needed.
• We had a new sprout arrive at Sprout Central....a real cutie....he is the foster child of some friends and we kind of expected the worst regarding behavioral issues, but so far he has been a pleasure. Except at nap time however, but he's getting better so pretty soon he should be fine.
• I tried some new soup starter kits from Whole Foods and they were AMAZING!!! Can I just tell you how much I love that store. If you have one near you and have never tried them....you really must go....they are a bit more pricey on some things...but the quality you get is WELL worth it!
• I had my first day of wishing I could just go home from Sprout Central.....I swear the kids were all wired to meltdown at the exact same times that day.....I wanted to pull my hair out...lol. It's all good now though.
• We went sledding with the kids, well....I didn't sled down the hill...I let Amber and Becky do that....I just took the pictures.
• Ben and I went to our friend's John and Melissa's for a game night last night. THAT was fun....they have tons of games that I've never heard of, but are really cool. This was one of them.
  

• Sargie got himself trapped inside the recliner again. LOL...that was tonight....he has a habit of crawling inside the underneath of recliner when I have the footrest up and this time when I got up and closed the footrest he didn't have time to get out. So this time I decided to snap a picture of him before I let him out. LOL

So I think that's pretty much it for the week in review. I'm thinking that I'm going to take more daily pics though to include in the blog. I think it will add some fun to it.
Let me know what you think! :)

Doctors, Sprouts and Ice

So I decided to take the weekend off from blogging....not so much by intentional choice as much as I was just exhausted and decided to sleep instead of my usual 10-midnight writing block. Sooooooooooooooo let me catch you up. Saturday we had a snowstorm in the afternoon so there was a parking ban in our city, which meant we didn't have our normal street ministry. So that was actually nice....we got some much needed rest and ran a couple of errands. Then that night Lori came over and in the expectation of all of us possibly having no church the next morning she spent the night so we could chit chat without worrying about the weather and catch up. Since her mom died and Momchu died, we just haven't been able to connect.
So I had gotten some gourmet fresh raviolis from Whole Foods and expected to have a really nice Italian dinner. Hmmmmm......so much for that. What I failed to notice was that the filling included goat cheese! I HATE goat cheese.....ughhhhh....nasty flavor....it tastes like the smell of a petting zoo!!! No amount of sauce, no amount of Parmesan cheese..or anything else could kill that nasty flavor. Both Lori and myself gulped them down with as few bites as possible and as quickly as possible so we had to taste them as LITTLE as possible. LOL
Meanwhile,both of our churches are die hards that rarely cancel a service soooooo at 5 the next morning Ben and I woke up and went out to shovel the driveway and clean the cars. By the time we were done we had just enough time to run in, get cleaned up and dressed and wake Lori up to get ready. OY!!
Sunday was great, as usual....and I was sooooooooooo psyched to have a couple of my friends help me in the kitchen. Yesterday afternoon was relaxed and wonderful...Ben and I watched a movie and just enjoyed each other's company.
Monday being back with the kids and my co-workers was so nice. Amber wanted to make banana pudding with the kids so she walked them through each step and I took pictures of them all. LOL...soooooo cute! Today was just as good.....only today we made English muffin pizzas with them. They had fun. We also took the whole little sprout herd to the park to go sledding. They had a BLAST.
Life at home yesterday and today has been fun too. It's been so cold and icy that simple things like even taking Sargie to go potty has been an adventure in humor. Imagine a little dog that #1 can't find a scent to mark his usual tinkle zone and #2 when he does finally find a spot, attempting to get the necessary traction to pee is almost impossible. Not to mention when we first step outside the step is a sheet of ice and no matter how many times he slips and falls he still hasn't learned to pace himself going out the door. So every time he hits the ground running..he LITERALLY hits the ground. All four feet flying and tail spinning like some out of control rudder..there he goes....ZZZZZZIP...BOOM....right off the step. LOL.
Let's see..what else.....oh yeah, last night we finally got the meeting with the hospital to discuss our concerns about Momchu's passing. You could tell they were trying to do damage control,and you could tell they were defensive....and the one Dr that was the thorn in our side was there too. We did well...all three of us vented our frustrations, our anger, our concerns and said all the things we have been chomping at the bit to say since she first went into the hospital there. Then at one point I had my chance to finally call this doctor out on the carpet for cold and callous and god-complex things he had done. I will tell you I handled it very tactfully..I didn't swear..I didn't rant and rave and didn't raise my voice. However, with every ounce of tact and boldness in me, I called him on every single thing that I felt needed to be addressed. The silence in the room and the squirming body language of the other hospital staffers made it an interesting confrontation... I refused to back down and every lawyer,military man and medical staffer in my own family would have been proud as I drew on every single one of them to deftly defend my disgust at him, and by the time I was done........well.......I had clearly made my point.
Sigh....I firmly believe that we did NOT lose Momchu for nothing...and I know that if we can make this hospital safer, and more attentive to it's patients and their right to be treated like human beings....then it will have been worth it. That alone takes the sting out of losing her. God is good!!

Fiesta, Cuddles and Evil Aunt Mary

Oh my gosh....Praise God what ANOTHER awesome day!!! Me and the girls actually treated ourselves to a little Mexican feast for lunch today in celebration of being back at work. Yeah, yo heard me....we can't help it...we LOVE it at our little Sprout Central!! So we found a tiny hole in the wall place in downtown that was completely authentic...to the point that I almost needed a translator to place the order. LOL. The food was really good though....and the portions were HUGE. I think we'll definitely be going back. Plus as Amber and I waited for them to prepare our order the waitress actually gave us free dessert that she had made herself. It was good...and a bit unique. It was a rum raisin cake with flan on top. I liked it, but poor Amber didn't....so I told her to wrap it in her napkin to throw out. LOL.
It was sooooooo nice to be back with the kids though....they are just such a blessing. They make us laugh and you can't help but feel like a superhero when they run to you to tie their shoe laces, fix a broken toy or hug away their fears and tears. My favorite (yes I freely admit I have a favorite), I'll call him "Tank" (because he's built like a little tank...I fully expect to see him on the NFL gridiron someday) ....anyway.....my pitiful little Tank wasn't feeling well today. His usual bubbly,smiling self with his bright eyes and million dollar smile was trying his best to be perky as usual, but he just wanted to be cuddled and this child who is always smiling at me, just wanted to cry. SIGH...I felt so bad....my poor little baby.....so Amber and I took turns cuddling him and finally put him down for a nap. Thankfully he slept well and by the time he got up three hours later....he was feeling much better. YEAH!!!! :)
So anyway, after work we went and spent a couple of hours with Mike, chatting and just visiting. That was nice....I have really good brother in laws.....actually....all of my in laws are wonderful....with the exception of Aunt Mary in Manhattan...MMMMMM.....that's another story for another blog day. LOL...oh well...according to the rest of the family she doesn't like ANYBODY...so no big loss there.....LOL.
Anyway.....it was a good day....after we got home we had some errands to run so we took Sargie for a car ride and grabbed some fast food for dinner. It may not sound like much, but I am soooooo thankful for all the little details in my life....I'm soooooo blessed beyond belief. God's awesome!!!
Night all!

Cyber Mom and Fruit Loops

Wow....so today was pretty nice and relaxing. This morning I helped bring my mom into the cyber world by setting her up with an email account, a blog and a facebook account. Why go slow? DIVE right in, I say!!! :D LOL Actually, to be honest, the only reason I set her up with an email and facebook account is BECAUSE she wanted a blog.
That was pretty fun actually. I can't wait till she really gets into the swing of things and starts emailing etc. :)
Let's see......so after I was done with that I went shopping to pick up some fresh fruit to bring to Francesca (our 85 year old neighbor who is temporarily in a convalescent home to rehab from a broken foot). Poor thing...she's such an independent woman and this is just miserable for her. I keep telling her it's only temporary though and she will be home soon, which I know will be a blessing for her to not have to endure the horrible food at the conv any more. She's a gourmet Italian cook and I've seen the "meals" they pass out to the residents and quite frankly....it's one step up from cardboard. No fresh fruit....all prepackaged frozen food, no seasonings or flavor at all....I don't blame her for not wanting to eat it.
After I got home I helped Ben write out the thank you notes for all the cards we got after Momchu died. Holy cow.....I couldn't believe how many cards we got!! So that's done...thank you Lord.....
Next I am working on a new afghan for Sprout Central. I decided to do something really bright and colorful since the kids love the bright colors. So this one is inspired by a box of Fruit Loops...literally. Bright yellow, orange, green, blue, purple and pink. I'll be working on it while the kids are napping so hopefully it will go pretty quickly.
Sigh....now it's getting late....sleep is calling....so no more details of today's adventures....but tomorrow is a full schedule...so ya never know what is on the horizon.
Night all!

Update on life

Wow.........it's been a long two weeks or week and a half...or however long.....the days are starting to run together to be honest. A LOT has happened, but the two biggest things are my dear mother in law (nicknamed Momchu) had a stroke a week and a half ago....on the night of the 6th (yeah we never did get to the MC birthday ball...or even our hotel suite, but that's ok) . We were told that night that she wouldn't make it and even if she did....that her quality of life would be so poor that we should let her go just to spare her. Of course we all love her so even the thought of doing such a thing was just unthinkable......so we prayed....we told God we were ok with whatever He decided to do with her, but that we were asking for a miracle. Within an hour we began to see a turn around and almost all signs of paralysis began to fade with a restoration of movement and basic motor skills. She still has a long way to go, but she is alert, communicative and with proper rehab will make a wonderful recovery.
The second thing that happened is I started my new job (instead of the nickname of Deathstar like my last job, the new nickname for my job will be Sprout Central) and I LOVE it!!! The kids are great, a few behavioral quirks here and there....but overall...they are AWESOME!! Besides.....after 9 years of working at the deathstar.....nothing can phase me. LOL. So I am enjoying everything from wiping noses, changing diapers and getting the bottoms of my shoes sticky from spilled juice......to dancing around like a maniac, walking children to the park on a rope leash and reading the same page in a storybook 20 times because it has the picture of a snowman on it. LOL. I am really enjoying it too....I'm not just saying it either....I'm REALLY having a BLAST!!! Plus the other teachers are soooooo great to work with...it's making the whole process fun. I think the worst thing I've had to deal with so far was sitting on a dried and crusty booger. Yeah that was pretty nasty.....but other than that....no complaints. LOL.
So that's the 411 for now.....it's not every detail...but at least it catches you up on my last two weeks so I can start fresh with more amusing entries.