The Flounderer (and I don't mean the fish)

What do you get when a husband is gone for a week-long business trip? A toilet clogged with the biggest bucket load of crap imaginable (from a little friend of my daughter's no less) that took me more than two days and lots of changes of clothes and washing of hands and loud yell---I mean mutterings, to unclog. A child who knows better than to play with fire who almost burns the house down while playing with a lighter. A slow-draining bathtub in the kids' bathroom that, when taken apart, is full of a soft-ball sized clog of hair, pony-tail holders, dirt and slime that takes several hours and lots of tools to get out. A gagging and crying, stressed-out wife and mother who is handling all of this by herself who can barely walk because of a ripped-off big toenail.

Despite all of this, all seems quiet on the family front. At least on the outside. But beyond the quiet, I am experiencing what seems to me to be life-changing events. I feel lost, floating in a sea of uncertainty. I keep praying. What should I do, Lord? I don't have answers. I thought maybe I did, but now I realize that I don't. In time I know that I will feel grounded again, but right now I am floundering.

I know you're wondering what in the world I am talking about and all I can say is that it has to do with our 15 year old son. Our 15 year old son who is turning 16 in November. Our 15 year old son who is only a little more than 2 years away from 18 and having to take on adult responsibility. Our 15 year old son. Yeah.

Lord help us. Lord help HIM.

Warning: I'm climbing onto my soap box for this one!

I don't like horror movies. In fact, I've never watched one all the way through because I don't want to put images in my mind that will be with me the rest of my life. Oh sure, the constant dwelling on them may fade, but things like that have a way of resurfacing unannounced, like when BD is on a business trip for a week and I'm crawling into bed and hear a noise. I've spent many nights in agony thinking about "what might happen". I don't need to make things worse. Why would I choose to do that to myself?

The same applies for anything of a perverse or sexual nature. Other people may do horrible things, but why do I want to put those ideas in my mind? While a naive flight attendant of 22, I happened to see a postcard of a perverse sexual nature on a street corner in Athens, Greece. It was in one of those turn-racks, right next to the picture of a sunset over the Parthenon that read "Wish you were here". That image is now burned into my brain and pops up at the worst times. Before that, I hadn't even imagined such aberrant things were possible. I'll remember that image until the day I die. Is it possible to be too sensitive in this area? I don't think so. Every act starts in the mind. Who knows where one step will lead?

Anyway, while at the library with my girls the other day, I walked by the shelves in the teen section and one book in particular caught my eye. It was obviously new and expensive. On the cover of the thick, glossy book jacket was a photo of a pretty little girl's dress made of white silk strewn with tiny pink roses. I was intrigued by the photo and by the title, "Living Dead Girl". The back breifly mentioned that it was an abduction story. I like mystery, especially if there's a happy ending as the pretty cover seemed to indicate, so while my girl's were in the children's section, I sat down and started to read the first few pages.

I wish I hadn't.

It was an abduction story, all right. Told from the first person perspective of a 15 year old girl who'd been abducted at ten and kept as a sexual slave by her captor. It wasn't a fantasy, like a vampire novel, or a Harry Potter tome. It was reality. It was told in great detail. Told graphically. There were things in those first five pages that will haunt me the rest of my life, details you would never hear about on the news or even said outloud on the street. Those pages deeply depressed me to the point that I walked around distracted and on the verge of tears for a few days. I tried to stop replaying it in my head. I begged God to let me stop thinking about it, and the worst part of it is that this book was in our public library that our tax dollars are paying for and was in the TEEN SECTION.

I admit that I'm a little naive, especially for a forty year old woman. But I don't think I'm a prude, nor am I am I legalistic in any way. I may not agree with what an adult chooses to read or fill their heads with, but I don't have the right to tell an adult what to do (unless they are a serial killer. :-) Then I might tell them to stop killing people!) But it scares me to death to think an unsuspecting young mind could innocently pick up that book and have pictures of these sexual horrors in their heads. And even scarier is that someone made the decision that this was suitable reading for teenagers. If someone is caught doing the things that were done in this book, we call them a monster, more animal than human, someone without a conscience. But reading about them being done to a child is OK. And hey, it's enlightening for young minds to be exposed to all sorts of things, right? I pray every day for the Lord's protection to be around my childrens' thoughts.

My beautiful kids

I am blessed to have two sisters who take great pictures. Here are some examples:

These were taken by my sister in 2003.

These were taken by my sister-in-law in 2006.

And these were taken by that same sister-in-law in her back yard today:

(This one is looking at me when I was a girl.)

Banana Pops gone wrong

If you want to do your kids a favor and make them dislike chocolate, just go to the store, buy that waxy dipping chocolate, melt it, then try to coat peeled bananas with it. You'll end up with globs of half-liquid melted chocolate that barely cling to the bananas because they are more interested in congealing into squishy lumps of chocolate-flavored wax. Then sit back and watch as your children greedily down the dubious brown mass and proceed to get stomach aches they will remember the rest of their days. Now pat yourself on the back. You have accomplished your goal of making the mere mention of melted chocolate distasteful to them for life. You're a great parent!

School news

My son started his sophmore year Wednesday and I start school with the girls Monday. Today is my planning day. Since I'm using the same curriculum I used last year, I'm familiar with how the day goes and am hoping it won't be overwhelming today. We'll see.

Indian's game

Last night the kids and I went to the Indianapolis Indians game because our good friends, the Millers, were singing the national anthem before the game. I wish I could figure out how to embed video so I could put it on here. (It's on my Facebook page if anyone wants to see it there.) Anyway, we sat on the lawn. The incline of the ground made it perfect to lay back and actually see the game from that position. The kids running around and the fact that it was so far away were the downfalls of our seats, but it was a nice night--the perfect temperature, and we had a blast!

Wil and I. He's got his sad, puppy dog eyes because he was starting school in the morning.

Baylee, Izzi, Lydia Wright and me. (Yes, I'm talented enough to get all four of us in a picture just by holding out my arm and clicking!)

I want to be a mommy!

Ten-year-old: I just want to be a mom so bad. That's why I don't want Jesus to come back until then.

Me: What do you love about the idea of being a mom?

10-year-old, with passion: I just want to tell them about my childhood, I want to go trick-or-treating with them, I want to buy them birthday presents, I want to go with them to get their ears pierced, I want to teach them, I want to take them different places, I want to take them out to eat, I want to teach them to ride a bike, I want to do their hair and nails.

Me: What if you have all boys?

10-year-old: That's OK, I want to have a girl AND a boy. I want to watch them go off diving boards, I want to help them decide what they want to be, to help them pick out what they are interested in. I can't wait to get my own house and paint their rooms and get accessories for them and I want to pick out the names for my kids and I want to walk them to the bus stop, even when they are teenagers. There's SOOO many things I want to do with them. I want to bring them to your house at Christmas. I want them to have friends, and have sleepovers, and go places with their friends, I want to teach them about nature, I want to take them to get their hair cut, I want to teach them to read, to be there when they lose their first tooth. It just seems so fun. I want to be there when they move from the nursery at church to their first Sunday School class. I want to take care of them. I want to bring them over to your house so I can have special dates with my husband. Oh Mommy, there's just SOOO many things I want to do!

Scrap retreat

After six wonderful days in Ohio, the kids and I drove home only for me to turn around less than 24 hours later and attend a retreat with my scrappin sistahs. There is a group of girls at our church that love to scrapbook together and one of them worked it out so we could use her in-law's lake house for the weekend. What a wonderful time of fellowship, fun and crafting! While there, we each issued a challenge, competed to put together the most pages, went to a diner that has been featured on HGTV, got lost, watched Meet the Parents, listened to corny music, and...well, it would take too long to list all that we did. And one of our members turned 35 on Sunday, the last day. On the way home, we got her a cashew-carmel custard dish from Culver's. I've never had such wonderful ice cream in my life.

Anyway, I completed 14 events (21 pages) over the weekend. I was in the zone! I'm sorry to bore some of you, but for those who are interested, here are my completed pages:

My daughter the SAR

My youngest daughter loves to shop. (A girl after my heart!) I love to have her as my little shopping buddy...she's a big help and always has a cheerful attitude. There's just one problem---Izzi is a SAR (Stuffed Animal Rescuer) and she take her job very seriously. She told me last week that she can hardly stand to be around the stuffed animals in the store because they are begging her to save them (in voices too high to hear by adults). "Rescue me! Save me! Love me! Take me home!" Yes, she can hardly bear to be around them, and yet that area of the store draws her as if they were pulling her with invisible strings. If there are stuffed animals in a store, she just sits down in front of the display and carefully chooses which one (or two or more) animals she will ask me to buy. If I do, she will carefully cradle it, stroking and talking to it softly. The way home from the store is precious as she tenderly cares for her new pet. They are very real to her. And it's not like she ever forgets about them. She gets babysitters for all of her animals when she leaves, she feeds them, reads to them, puts them tenderly to bed. Years later she still remembers their birthdays and when and where she rescued them. She seems to have the capacity in her heart for unlimited pets. She builds individual homes for them from shoe-boxes, carefully designing the construction paper decor to suit their needs. She never forgets any of their names. She is precious with them.

Now all of this would not be a problem except that I DON'T WANT 100 OR MORE STUFFED ANIMALS AND THEIR HOMES IN HER ROOM!!! And I feel like the bad guy when I turn down her requests to help her rescue one. (Which is most of the time.)

Mmmm....

Driving to Chillecothe, Ohio, to visit my mom's parents has been a yearly event since I was born. I think I've missed one summer in 40 years. Anyway, my girls went over to Grandma Mil's Thursday and BD, Wil and I followed after BD got home from work Friday evening. On the four hour drive, Wil just talked and talked and he even made sense sometimes. One of those times was when he just blurted randomly,

Fried chicken is tasty in the summertime!

What can I say? Sometimes he comes up with a profound truth.

Sunday Scrapping

I didn't get much scrapping done this week because I threw my back out last weekend and our regular church craft nights, where I usually get a lot of stuff done, have been "Prep for VBS" nights instead. :-)

I finished the layout of my brother coming home from his deployment last September:

as well as a 3 page Christmas LO.

Although I didn't do this week's Sunday Scrappin' challenge, working chronologically keeps me inspired and these were the next pictures on my list! If you want to talk about challenges though, my sil, Leah, has commented a couple of times about how she likes that I usually use non-traditional colors for Christmas layouts. So I've begun challenging myself to do so whenever I can. The 3 page Christmas LO I did this week was aqua blue, neon green and bright yellow with a touch hot pink and orange.

Anyway, there is a group of five of us ladies that like to scrapbook at our church. (Wani, my sis-in-law Lehi, Kara, Toni and myself) We've started informally calling ourselves the Scrappin' Sistahs and have been getting together on a semi-regular basis for over a year now. Last month, Lehi issued a challenge which Toni won. This month, I've decided to come up with a challenge for the group too. It's fun and gives us a personal goal, you know? Here's the challenge sketch and Wani's entry. (she's always the first one to complete a challenge):

Check out her whole post...!

And here's my page, which I completed this week. I turned in on it's side, which is why it looks different from Wani's. I hand-drew the white title on the black cardstock. The whole title reads, "Pictures of joy prove life isn't a dream":

I want to invite all of my readers to participate. If you like to scrapbook and are interested (to more people we have, the more fun it'll be!) use the sketch in the picture as an inspiration for your own page. You have about two weeks to complete it...it's due on Monday, July 20th. I'm also adding a twist. The title must be at least 50% hand-done and I will also be taking into account the words themselves. Is it an especially creative or poignant title, like Toni's was in the last challenge? Or is it poetic? Especially meaningful? A clever play on words? Send a pic to my email or blog. arshuman@sbcglobal.net and feel free to invite others to participate---the more the merrier!

Sunday Scrappin', a day late!

I know this Sunday Scrappin' post is late, but I threw my back out Sunday morning and couldn't even sit up yesterday, let alone get on the computer. That same day, our router bit the dust, so until Wednesday, we can only get online occasionally. Are those good enough excuses? :-)

Anyway, I did get four pages done last week. I finished the layout of my brother coming home from his deployment last September, (sorry it's dark)

as well as a 3 page Christmas LO.

This wasn't this week's Sunday Scrappin' challenge, but working chronologically keeps me inspired and these were the next pictures on my list! If you want to talk about challenges though, my sil, Leah, has commented a couple of times about how she likes that I usually use non-traditional colors for Christmas layouts. So I've begun challenging myself to do so whenever I can. The 3 page Christmas LO I did this week was aqua blue, neon green and bright yellow with a touch hot pink and orange.

Anyway, there is a group of five of us ladies that like to scrapbook at our church. (Wani, my sis-in-law Lehi, Kara, Toni and myself) We've started informally calling ourselves the Scrappin' Sistahs and have been getting together on a semi-regular basis for over a year now. Last month, Lehi issued a challenge which Toni won. This month, I've decided to come up with a challenge for the group too. It's fun and gives us a personal goal, you know? Here's the challenge sketch and Wani's entry. (she's always the first one to complete a challenge):
Here, check out her whole post...!

I want to invite all of my readers to participate. If you like to scrapbook and are interested (to more people we have, the more fun it'll be!) use the sketch in the picture as an inspiration for your own page. You have about two weeks to complete it...it's due on Monday, July 20th. I'm also adding a twist. The title must be at least 50% hand-done and I will also be taking into account the words themselves. Is it an especially creative or poignant title, like Toni's was in the last challenge? Or is it poetic? Especially meaningful? A clever play on words? Send a pic to my email or blog. arshuman@sbcglobal.net and feel free to invite others to participate---the more the merrier!

If you've read this far, thanks for bearing with me! I don't know when I'll actually be able to post this, but in the meantime, have a great week!

Remember the hat lady

As my husband would tell you, I have a problem.

I buy clothing and forget to take the tags off. Now before you have visions of the woman from Hee Haw with the price tag dangling from her hat, I DO eventually take them off. Just not until I wear them for the first time. And the problem is that by that time, if they are not in my line of sight, I often forget. Many is the day that BD grabs a tag on my shirt, yanks hard, and a price tag falls to the floor. He thinks it's pretty funny but it's quirks like that that make us unique, right?

Anyway, today, I put on a new shirt and noticed the tag protruding from the shoulder. So I grabbed it and pulled. And pulled. It didn't come loose. My brow wrinkled in consternation. After all, BD makes it look so effortless. I know he has those big, strong muscles in his arms and all, but surely I'm strong enough to break a little plastic tag. So I tried again. I pulled harder. I yanked so hard that my fist snapped back and...and...and I gave myself a bloody lip.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'm just that kool.

love and flabby arms

My ten year old loves to squeeze my upper arms. Even though it's the part of my body I dislike the most, I grit my teeth and let her because she does it out of love. But all that squeezing must have left her with some nagging questions.

Mama, when I grow up, will my arms look like yours?

What do you mean, honey?

I mean do all grown ups have those flaps on their arms?

(I once again grit my teeth and smile.) Your arms don't have to have them. If I did special exercises, they wouldn't be that way.

(She tilts her head and looks confused.) Why don't you do those exercises?

(By this time, I'm getting a little defensive.) Do you think I look bad, Izabella?

No! (She runs to me and hugs me close.) I love you, Mommy. (She pulls away and pats my arm and I can tell she's just genuinely curious about the changes a person goes through to get an adult body. To her ten year old mind, people don't look good or bad, they just either love her or they don't.)

But I've been doing my special "upper body" exercise tape ever since!

Sunday Scrapping

Like I said last Sunday, I participated in a challenge two weeks ago. Here is the challenge sketch:



And here is the page I did:


I didn't win, but you can go here to see all the contenders...

Anyway, the challenge this week was to use contrasting colors from opposite sides of the color wheel. I choose blue and red-orange:


I also scrapped four other pages. This was an ice skating trip from last December:


I love these pictures! My sis-in-law snizzle-sis took them at her house last fall and they have always reminded me of how JOY feels.


This page is four misc. photos from last year:


This is the second page of a two-page layout of my brother's homecoming to his base in Germany last September after a 15 month deployment in Iraq. I started the first page, but the electricity went out at our church during craft night Friday just as I was starting it. I'll get it done this week.

A post about nothing

I'm starting to exercise again. Yay! I won't be running for a while, but I still manage to get a 45 minute walk in most days. And I didn't gain any weight while I was down, something I was worried about. In fact, I lost 2-3 pounds. And despite my harrowing doctor's checkup a couple of weeks ago, I am healing really well. I feel almost back to normal.

I just gotta say how wonderful I feel to have a family like mine. Everyone is healthy and God has allowed me to stay home with my kids as well as have a wonderful, supportive husband. I am so blessed. And my kids are the sweetest!

OK, that's all for now. Maybe I'll come up with something witty or at least interesting later, but for now, Sniz out!

Sunday Scrapping

I used to have a Sunday Scrapping post regularly, but have gotten out of the habit, so I have a lot of catching up to do. My daughter, Baylee, has become a scrapper too, and that is fun to share my hobby with her! This week, I entered a challenge put forth by my scrappin sistah, (and sister-in-law) which my BFF Toni won - rightly. :-)

At our church craft night Friday, I scrapped this page of our 16th anniversary dinner last October.

This is a three-page layout of a a weekend at my parent's timeshare in French Lick, Indiana last November.

This is my fortieth birthday breakfast last October.

This is my birthday trip to downtown Indianapolis.

A homeschooling trip to the Indiana State Museum, plus some misc. stuff.

An old picture that didn't belong anywhere, so I had fun just putting one picture on this page.

Same with this one.

Christmas at my Grandma's house. Baylee was in rare form!

My computer's power cord gave up the ghost today, so if I don't have time to visit any blogs today, I promise I will when the new cord comes in! Until then, I have to finish this before the battery dies! Hope you all have a good week!

June 13, 2009

I know all of you are on pins and needles wanting to know how our chore system is working. Well, we started out strong and our house looked better than it had in a while. I started just giving them one misc. chore each morning that consisted of anything I saw around the house that needed done...like straighten the books on the kids' bookshelf, or wash the wall where there were water-marks that had been bugging me (but that I hadn't done myself :-)) or go through the shoe basket and find any socks and put them in the dirty clothes or empty out the vacuum cleaner. Slowly but surely things were getting done and I was checking their work regularly. It's now a week into it and the kids are starting to complain. So they still do their chores, just more reluctantly. That's human nature, I guess.

And for those of you interested in the winner of the scrap challenge, my BFF Toni won! Not only was her page beautiful, but we all agreed that the title and the journaling was so creative and cool, not-withstanding that someone in her family that shall remain nameless thought the half-circles on the bottom of the page represented a certain part of the female anatomy. Save us from male scrapbookers! Although BD DID scrap a very cool page once and he loves to put little captions coming from the mouths of the people in the photos. He's cool that way.

scrapbook challenge

Recently my snizzle-sis, Lehi, issued forth a scrapbook challenge unto us. Those of us with courage to face said challenge, used the following sketch as a guideline:



Baylee (my 12 year old daughter) came up with this:



Here's Lehi's page:


Here's Wani's two pages:




Here's mine:


And here's Toni's:

Kid Scrap

Here is Baylee's most recent scrap book page. It was created today using pictures from a few years ago.

Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy

I am such a wimp. I went to the surgeon yesterday for my first check-up post-surgery, and he removed all the steristrips and some gauze that had gotten accidentally glued to my incision. When he was done, it looked AWFUL and it hurt like heck. The incision looked open again and was bleeding, but he said it looked pretty good. Wha??? I guess that's just my wimpiness talking when I say it do NOT look good! In fact, I had to sit down and cry a little bit after I left his office. Like I said, WIMP.

15 year old

One of the things I love about our son is that he's always happy. (Well almost all the time.) I guess I've learned to appreciate that quality more and more as one of our other children becomes moodier and moodier by the day (actually, by the hour). But one of the side affects of being always happy seems to be that he has the ability (as most males do) to turn a switch and stop thinking about something unpleasant whenever he wants to. Therefore, he seems to be able to listen to us talk for an hour about how he needs to be more responsible with his things and how he needs to be more trustworthy to do his chores, and he can walk away, bouncing around, singing, and cheerfully forgetting that he ever had anything he forgot to do or there might still be things he needs to do. He has to write lots of sentences today (that's one of the consequences we came up with) and he wasn't happy at first, but like I said, he has the ability to distract himself from thinking about anything he doesn't want to. So the fact that he wouldn't have to write them if he did what he was supposed to the first time doesn't trouble him anymore and now he's happy again. When I called BD this morning to discuss this with him, he said we just have to accept that he may never see the importance of what we are saying while he's at home, but we just have to love him. We both hope and pray this stuff will make sense to him when he's an adult. But I have to admit, it scares me to think this boy will be driving in less than a year.