Well, this isn't going to help...

It has come to this.

Hey, friends!  Our house is still FOR SALE.  For Christmas by dear SIL got me this gift.  Today was the day to dig the hole.  It is frozen where I live.  I boiled some water and made a little warm muddy pit to put St. Joe into.  Facing the road, placed head first down.

 I have to admit it was difficult to explain to BB why this statue was going to help sell our house.  We are so, not Catholic, or superstitious.  Well, that was before our house was on the market for nine months.  Now, I'll stick a ceramic eco statue in the ground and even say a prayer over it, asking for help from wherever it shall come.

FIVE!

Christmas Cards

I am sharing a post from Hollywood Housewife on Christmas Cards.  I agree with nearly every one of her criteria.  Although, I am sure both us aren't necessarily judging...just, um...commenting. 

My plan for this year shouldn't be too difficult to pull off.  I say that every year, don't I?  You can see some of my past cards here and here.


By the way:  Our house is still for sale.  We have had four showings in three days.  This is the way to do it:  get my money out of the cleaning.

What I Need to Live Up to...

If I have any complaint about BB's preschool it is this.  Too. Many. Birthday Parties.  While the parties don't compare to the likes of Hollywood celebrities or even the articles you read about life in The Big City.  They are still more than I think a five year old needs.  (or a three year old--she's getting invited, too.)  I have no idea how parents are planning to top themselves each year.

For many reason we aren't having a party this year.  I mean we ARE.  It just won't look like the last four parties....no grandparents, no invitations (yet)...Instead, we are heading to A BIG CITY to hang out as a family at a museum and then look at the Christmas lights.  On Thursday we'll let BB pick his meal.  He'll bring a goodie bag to school for each classmate (because we can't bring food...)  Sometime soon we are planning a special "play date" with three of his friends from school.  I imagine there will be cake, an activity and it will feel a bit like a party to a five year old.

This week I need to figure out how many of last years traditions I want to recreate. I best get busy...

What I've Been Up To...

For my new nephew. (it is in the mail and I am pretty sure my sister isn't checking in on my blog these days...)

 Love this!  I almost bought a pre-made pot, but am so pleased with how it turned out.

The decorating style of the nearly f-i-v-e year old!

Regretting this purchase.  :)

The Strong One

Are you an oldest child?  Are you the "strong one?"  Neither are bad ways of being (or being perceived), but there are some challenges.  My dear friend who writes at The Emmaus Road wrote a beautiful devotional piece on being strong and taking care of each other--it brought me to tears.  So often I forget that the hallmarks of my faith tradition are vulnerability, weakness and God's ability to bring life out of our human frailty.

I can't do much about people's impression of me, but I can learn to cut myself some slack.  I am strong.  But I don't always have to be....God can work with me, either way.

Third Date

Surely, the third visit is when you fall in love with a house, right?

Our house is still for sale.

But people are coming for the third look tomorrow.  Keeping my hopes in check.



*Anyone have any insightful or interesting thoughts on John's Bread of Life idea? (John 6:25...) The service on Sunday isn't using the Lectionary texts.

Lighter Matters.

Literally.  We are moving on to a topic that is lighter.  This is a mystery in my life right now...
 

 These are my jeans.  The top pair are the jeans I wore most of last fall and winter.  The bottom pair is my current go-to jean.

On both of these pants you will notice a lighter coloring on my left knee.  (The most recent one looks like the right knee is showing similar wear. But no where near the effect the left knee has.)

Why?

Yes, I am serious.  Why is this happening?

Soft Hearts

It seems to me one of the most unattractive qualities in a person is a hardened heart.  Cynical.  Cold.  Harsh.  I can come across as possessing a number of these attributes.  But for those who know me well, or the most deeply, they know it is all a facade.  (ok, sarcastic humor is just...me.)  If I actually went about life as exposed and in touch with everyone's emotions as I could be, I'd be in a perpetual crying jag.  That is so attractive.  Not always helpful.  Or, necessary.

Instead, I layer on protective armor.  Silence.  Rants and anger at those with whom I feel the most secure.  Eye rolls.  Avoidance, can be useful as well.  Plugging my ears and singing 'La, la, la' can be helpful.  So can closing my eyes and focusing only on my family.  "If the three around me are ok, everyone must be ok."

The trick becomes, in how to protect the heart with out hardening it too much.  Reality is, a heart needs the bumps and bruises in order to remain soft.  I must hear the stories people have to tell and feel their life, in order to more fully experience mine.  And beyond me, to more fully experience God.

On this All Saints Sunday, I can across one too many heart softening blows.  None of directly impacts my life or my heart...except God's heart is keeping beat with all of ours.  As I went to bed last night, I felt battle weary.

At church today we learned a neighbor across the street had died.  We had noticed action, but had never put much of the story together.  We remember him as a helpful, cheerful and kind man, with fun stories to share.  We feel--guilty? sad? careless?-that we weren't more in tune with the activity we saw.

Again at church, I learned of suicide of a young man whose life is connected to our congregation.

I have had a woman from our congregation on my mind for weeks...ever since I saw her beaming face at Target.  She was a month away from giving birth to her first child.  I was sure I was thinking about her so that our mom's group could bring her a meal and welcome her into our network.  I learned today she lost the baby and her ability to have any future children to a horribly rare pregnancy risk.  This hit too close to home.  Plus, my mothering heart aches for her and what is a particularly gut wrenching type of grief.

And then, amidst the glorious fall colors of a high school cross country running race (is there anything so inspiring as young athletes and the spirit of the spectators?) one of my favorite aunt's by marriage confided that her only sibling/sister has pancreatic cancer.  There is no armor strong enough to stop the tears when that diagnosis is proclaimed.  So I didn't.  Neither did my aunt.  We let a few tears fall and learned that our hearts beat together.

From my own experience I know the comfort in finding people who will acknowledge the horror of this cancer.  I remember the blank stares or pep talks of how "all will be ok." I remember the lonely feeling that came from knowing time with a loved just became increasing precious...and short.  I gave thanks for the soft hearts that cried with me, allowed me to, and walked into the darkness with me.

While I don't find it interesting or attractive, I understand how hearts are hardened.  I see the appeal.  It just isn't for me.

No Comment.

Our house is still for sale.

Repairing His First Love

This is BB's Bunny Bear.  You can read about him/her here.   BB, my son, has a bad habit of chewing on Bunny Bear right now.  To describe the results in words is pretty grotesque--so I will leave you to look upon the poor little guy.

In a moment of maternal love, I decided to help both BB and Bunny Bear.

I took a try at repair.  I dumped out the stuffing.  I sewed up the arms and cut up my t-shirt to make a new face.  The new eyes, nose, and mouth leave something to be desired.  I may give a try at the face another day.

  I tucked Bunny Bear in with BB last night.  The slight smile on my son's face was priceless.  I'm not sure who needs Bunny Bear to stick around a bit longer, my son or his mother.  The growth spurt on BB is going too fast, and if fixing a bear from his toddler days keeps him this side of baby-hood, I am going to work very hard to keep this little bear whole for as long as possible.

VOTE!!!

I know most people don't share my passion for all things political...but Election Day should be a holiday.  Celebrate this blessing and hard fought right.  I think it matters who you vote for...but any one who reads this knows my thoughts.  (although I must say where I am voting today, it is a choice between bad and worse, across the state...BUT I am still voting.)

All I will say is this...my home state of Minnesota better remember who they are and what makes them great among the other 50 states.  Don't make me come back there so I can campaign and vote....please, oh, please see the error of this congresswoman's ways!!!!

Going to be a late night for me...watching the results, and my blood pressure get high.  I love it!

Vote!

Better than Jazzercise

At 2:45 I got a call asking if I could show my house at 4:00pm.  Because I usually weigh situations from the perspective of "how I would do things" I figured if someone called on such short notice they must need a house ASAP. (Translation: I couldn't imagine making someone get ready for a house showing on such short notice unless I loved the house and needed to buy it today.)  So, I negotiated for 4:30 and said, "yes."

Then I....
locked the kids outside. (literally)
put cider on the stove to mull.
lite a candle.
threw all misc coats, sweatshirts, school and work bags, and paperwork from the office in to the car.
put all dirty clothing in baskets and put them in the "laundry room."
put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher...with the current clean ones.  No time to put away.
put the two baskets of clean laundry that I was folding down stairs in the "laundry area."
vacuumed.
made three beds.
cleaned up two bathrooms and a kitchen.
yelled at the kids to pick up the back yard and come inside.
put the kids in the car.
ran the swifter wet mop over the floors.
started some quiet music.
and I grabbed some candy for the kids and water for myself.  It was now 4:10.

Once in the car we circled the block and waited.  (Over time I have learned to just wait unless I have other things I must do.)

They came at 4:38pm.
They left at 4:48pm.

I have a flip book of quotes by my bed.  The quote (paraphrased) right now is, "if you can't change something, change how you think about it."

Here's how I am choosing to think about this...I got my workout in for today.

and...wait for it. 
Our house is still for sale.

I'd Say it Was a Carnival.

Raffle baskets are a difficult concept for a 4 (3/4) year old.  All he saw was a HUGE basket with Legos piled high inside.  He walked by it, stopped to smell it, touched it a bit, wiped his drool off of the table it was set up on and dove into the carnival games.

We went to the kids' school Fall Fest Carnival last night.  In case you missed that in my warm up.

I was feeling generous in my "support the school" spirit and purchased way too may tickets for any 4 and 2 year old to work through (especially at 6pm).  We fished for plastic fish.  We weighed our odds and grabbed ducks out a pond.  We threw rope circles on to the horns of a plastic bull.  We sent disks down a pegged board, trying to get 5 prize tickets.  We picked our suckers from the Lollipop Tree in hopes of finding one with the right color on the bottom.  Many, if not most of the games had an element of 'chance' to them.  BB and Michael ignored this...just enjoying the process of handing over a ticket and then never really understanding that they could have gotten more prize tickets, had they Lady Luck gone their way.

At least I thought that was what was going on.  Once we had done all the games, BB announced it was time to head over to collect his prize.  He headed in the exact opposite direction of the actual prize table.  "BB, it is over here."  Then I saw where he was headed with his 30 prize tickets.  The Lego Raffle Basket.
"BB, those are a special, different part of the night.  The adults bought tickets and put them in each basket for....a chance at winning.  They may not call our names." (and your mother never wins anything...so don't hang with me, kid.)

This did not go over well.  While I think he got the message that we may not win, he never fully absorbed the game rules.  I think it had a hard time making it through the layers of his imagination that had him taking home that box of Lego sets.

We got him over the the prize table.  To make matters worse the only way he could get what he wanted was to pool resources with little 'Miss I've Been Pouting and Crying and Making Daddy's Life Miserable for that Last 15 Mins While Mommy Talks to People.'  She didn't honestly get any of the economics of the night, so she never knew she gave My Husband permission to hand over her prize tickets to BB.  50 tickets got them a cowboy hat.  to. share.

Then the raffle started and BB and his his best bud caught wind of this.  The two of them got front row seats.  My Husband was done with the night and took Michael to the car.  I waited with friends and BB until the Lego Basket came up.

You know this story doesn't have a happy ending.

Perhaps, the worst part of the whole thing was the face and attitude of the boy who won.  I imagine that he didn't realize what the heck was going on any more than my kids did, so I give him that.  But seriously, kid, you just won THE LEGO BASKET.  THE LEGO BASKET.  He calmly stood to accept his prize.  His face registered no joy, no interest, no enthusiasm...at. all.  He calmly took it, nearly falling at the weight of the box, and sat down.  Where was the passion?  Come, on!!!  If you would have looked across the room, you would have seen what passion looks like--Sad, hot tears on the face of a little boy clinging to his mom's legs.  It wasn't pretty.  It got loud.

We had a great night.  No, seriously.  It didn't end well.  It ended loud and angry.  People had very hurt feelings.  We feel things around here.  We feel them deeply. We feel them for a long, long time...well into bed time.  Well after Mom and Dad have shut the doors and turned off the lights...the passion continues.

This morning, everyone woke up happy.  No one is mentioning the night before.

It was a carnival.


p.s.  I nearly forgot...our house is still for sale.

Frightening

A really nice byproduct of having a blog is the ready made filing cabinet for my memories.  Today, I looked back at what I did last Oct.  Apparently, I was on speed.  On Oct. 29, 2009, I was making birthday invitations for a party six weeks away.  Hum.  I do have the cookies on my mind for Oct. 29, 2010.  But the party planning is nowhere on my agenda.  (although BB does talk about his 'theme' and gift list daily hourly.)

I have no idea where we will be for his birthday.  And, I have not yet committed to a 'friend' party.  I'm in denial that I will have a five year old.

And, ya, know....our house is still for sale.

CaNdY!!!!!

First.  Our house is still for sale.

Apparently, Halloween is becoming a holiday we celebrate for weeks on end.  The kids have already been to two "Fall Festivals."  Both of which involved CaNdY.  Bags of CaNdY.

We've had some interesting "quiet times."  Instead of doling out CaNdY slowly, or hiding it, (and eating it myself) or buying it back, I am letting the kiddos eat it all.  At one sitting. 

Or, rather at their own pace.  As it turns out they actually pace themselves.  To their mother who has never really understood delayed gratification and has a mild addiction to food sugar, their behavior is odd.

But because of this addiction, and some emphasis on, ya know, nutrition, we never rarely have candy in the house. I figure once a season they might as well go crazy.  It is an odd move in today's parenting world.  I'm not sure if it is a conscience decision on my part or lazy parenting...either way, we are enjoying this week(s) of CaNdY!

8:00am to 2:00pm with 3,4,5 yr olds

If you know me, the title alone should get you in your car to bring me a glass of wine.  It has been a long day.  I volunteered for it.  The first half of the day, that is.  Then the field trip got moved to the afternoon.  And, three hours turned into five.
The greatest lesson I learned was that my nearly five year old is a) normal and b) is doing just fine.  While still unable to sit still and a bit bossy, he exhibits many other good qualities that I am, in fact, happy about.

And, p.s. our house is still for sale.

I live up to my name...

Yes, I'm sure you were looking for an actual post.  One with words and updates.  Perhaps, just a thoughtful reflection on an event.
Sorry.
I redecorated, instead.
The blue is too much like my high school color.  But it matches the blue on the ladder better than any purple I could find create. Rest assured I will play with it a bit more.
Our house is still for sale, so I am redecorating my blog to release my creative energy.

I Don't Do That

I have a review for work this afternoon.  Last night as I was filling out the form, I realized that I don't actually have a job description.  This past year I have done bits and pieces of what was asked and what I felt like doing.  While I will try to clarify my role today in the review, it doesn't completely bother me.

As I was thinking this over I read a chapter in the book Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist.  She talked about how she needed to define her own job description.  Especially, when it came to motherhood.  She wrote about how helpful it was to write out not only a list of what you do like to do, and have to accomplish, but also a list of what you don't do.

I'm pondering this thought.

I realized I don't make Halloween costumes.  That one is coming off my list of "things I feel I should do."
While it might seem that my creative energies would be all about the costume creation.  Halloween always sneaks up on me and I feel pressure rather than enjoyment.  Apparently, there are other things I'd rather be doing during the month of October.

Job descriptions are reviewed on a yearly basis so we'll see what next year brings.  But right now, I am giving my self permission to buy a costume, should it come to that.

It would also be mighty helpful if the costume wearers liked to a) wear costumes and b) could make up his mind.