Happy Birthday

Just want to wish Levi a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY today!
Hope you have a wonderful day!! Love you!

The MESS

In other news...please excuse the mess that has become my new layout. It is a work in progress...very slow progress. I will hopefully find a look I like in the very near future - in the meantime I understand that it is pretty obnoxious!

This stupid thing called a job keeps getting in the way of my fun creative time with my blog. Then when I get home our internet access has been touch and go - it is really frustrating! But I promise to try not to be one of those annoying bloggers that never updates my blog!

He's a Man (or Woman) Eater

My sweet little nephew is a very, very bad baby.

He attends the daycare at the church where I work so I get to hear all of the stories about him (from the daycare teachers and then from his mother).

So, the other day it finally happened, he BIT his 23rd victim. It seems that a child with a biting problem has a record at the daycare and when they have filled up a sheet (with 23 spaces on it) of children they have bitten - the paper gets sent home to mom and dad. It lists each victim and the time and date of the bite.

It is so hard to get mad at such a sweet little baby...but don't be fooled...he's a biter.


Who thinks he should be Hannibal Lecter for Halloween? I think he could pull it off! They have the same hair line.

LOST (Updated)

Oh, LOST - how I love thee...
let me count the ways (I mean...what the heck is there not to like about it?):

1. Oceanic Flight 815 - which crashed on September 22, 2004 (Sept. 22 is my birthday - ooohhhh! spookie!!!)

2. The Others

3. "You tasted like fish biscuits."

4. Walt - what a strange kid

5. Polar bears on a tropical island

6. Bad Twin

7. The Smokey Monster

8. Hanso Foundation and the Dharma Project

9. Henry Gale or is it Ben?

10. 4 8 15 16 23 42

11. The Hatch

12. Stephen King Book Club

13. dark pasts

...and much, much more

(UPDATED)
Check out these websites too - if you are a LOST fan:

Oceanic Air - There are 2 secret messages on this page...see if you can find them.

Hanso Foundation - This used to be a full "website" but now we just get this letter. I think that checking back here from time to time will give us some clues. (Like Rachel Blake is related to the Hanso Foundation - and somehow her boyfriend - Desmond - ended up on the island...curious.)

Check him out...

This is me and my cousin Brandon (he's the one that has peed his pants). He is a musician and has started a new website. Check him out and listen to some of his songs.

In addition to being a great singer and incredibly talented guitarist, he has also started building his own guitars...pretty amazing! He even found himself a cutie wife! She is a med student and got to work with the REAL Patch Adams (as you would see if you checked out his website)! She is also a real life Russian (as his Pawpaw would say)! What an interesting couple they are!





Give him a try...you could even buy his CD!!!

Finally

Well, this weekend I finally finished the entry. I painted the trim with latex without using KILZ first (me, the queen of KILZ). Never will I do that again! All, and I mean ALL of the paint pealed off with the painters tape...the trim had been painted with oil based paint before! I could have died!!!!

Before:













After:

Red and Yellow, Black and White...

After reading this post by my brother-in-law I was reminded of a post (read it, really) by the son of one of our ministers.

It really makes you think...how many people do we pass up every single day because they don't look, act or smell like what we think is acceptable.

I work at a downtown church and we have a "neighborhood" ministry. What does that mean? Well... here "neighborhood" has turned out to be code for "black". It means that we have some extra kids that come on Wednesday nights for dinner and either youth Bible study or children's choir - depending on their age. They come here from several of the surrounding apartment complexes. MOST of these kids are GREAT kids (some of them are real toots - but you would find that with any group of kids). They come from a very different culture ...even though they live right here among the rest of us. Most of them have single mothers, all of them are low income, many of them have emotional issues ...the list goes on and on.

But here we are... this big ...white ...wealthy church. And how do we treat these kids? Terribly!
There isn't acceptance here, they don't find love from most of the people they encounter while at church. This is what gives Christians a bad name or at least one of the things.

Just a few weeks ago I walked down the stairs to find one of our elderly members ripping into a "neighborhood" boy (who by the way was doing exactly what I had asked him to do). In a matter of 2 minutes of my hearing the conversation she accused him of stealing, accosted him for not having shoes on, and basically told him to leave and stop causing problems. It is so frustrating to me that this is the impression they get of church. All he did was stare at me with huge eyes and promise me that he wasn't doing anything... and I believe him... I would have believed him anyway, but just to prove it - we have a camera system and I was watching him sitting peacefully on the bench waiting... playing with his toys... just as I asked him to do.

Now don't get me wrong, we aren't going to put up with any crap. The rules apply to everyone - regardless of color. But only a few of us really care about what happens to these kids... only a few of us are willing to deal with the crap for now in hopes of making a change in the long run. For everyone else it is just too uncomfortable... too foreign... too difficult. They would rather turn them away so that they don't have to deal with something ookie like unchurched kids.

How do you teach a church to love those who aren't "like" them? How do you work through prejudices to find the love? How do you teach the un-churched about the love of God when they don't even see it within the church walls?

I think we could all take a lesson from the Amish on how to love...

Well, we had Jack and Vivi again last night. I really have sympathy for all of you moms out there. Especially single moms - since the husband was out of town and I had them all to myself!

So, you know how all your life you hear these "parental sayings" that you swear up and down you will never say to your children? Things like "because I said so" and "well if (blank) jumped off a bridge would you do it too" and such? (I long ago STOPPED saying I would never do something - when it comes to parenthood - which I have not experienced yet.) But last night I found myself ALMOST using one of those stupid little sayings, here is what happened:

So, I'm in the living room changing Jack's dirty diaper while Vivi is in the bath tub. Since she is 4 now, I don't feel too bad about leaving her alone for spans of time (I feel pretty confident that she won't drown in 3 inches of water at this point). Vivi keeps yelling for me to come to the bathroom - and I keep saying I can't until I finish changing Jack's diaper (which is like trying to hold down a Mexican Jumping Bean - that is covered in poo). She keeps calling me...I keep putting her off. Then all is quiet for a few minutes (uh oh). So I start walking to the bathroom and notice how strong her strawberry shampoo smells. I have already washed her hair so I assume it is just the lingering smell of the suds we rinsed out previously (you parent experts are saying "what and idiot").

When I round the corner into the bathroom she quickly says
"NOTHING!!!.....What?"

Then this blinding thought of "oh CRAP what did she do??!!" shoots through my mind. I also notice that the strawberry smell is almost sickening-ly strong and the shampoo bottle is floating in the water.

Then I notice that the water is pink...and full of pink bubbles...and then I realize what she has done.

"Did you pour all of your shampoo into the water?"

"Yes"

"Why did you do that?"

"I don't know"

Okay, so here it is...the "parental saying" I so badly wanted to use but didn't:

"Do you know how many kids in Ethiopia would love to be able use strawberry shampoo and now you just wasted your whole bottle!"

But I just told her to get out of the tub and dry off - no need to wash off with soap since she was swimming in it.

All those poor Ethiopian children...no food...no strawberry shampoo...

Oh, and for my dear sister...

What I Did on My Summer Vacation...

I don't have a lot to say about this trip...it was beautiful...peaceful...and fun. Colorado is my favorite place in the world.