“It’s too early in the morning to start school.”
“Sure, we can have the den meeting at our house!”
“That Raving Rabbids game looks fun.”
“I think I’ll make Lucy a dress for her birthday.” (Lucy is my niece, about to turn 3).
“Oh no! We are out of red onions!”
“This tea is too sweet.”
“That blue cheese dressing was really good!” [It was Marie’s blue cheese vinaigrette. Excellent on a salad of greens, chopped apples, grapes, candied walnuts, celery, and maybe chicken. Alternatively you can use regular (homemade!) vinaigrette and add your own blue cheese/gorganzola crumbles. And be pleased that you can now make a $12 salad at home for way cheaper, and have another way to stick it to the man.]
“We should get some cilantro…maybe the dried stuff.”
And in the same vein, “I can’t taste the cilantro in this corn and bean salad. It needs some more.”
“Maybe we should get a cell phone.”
“Sure, I’ll go to your 20 year high school reunion with you!”
Last but not least, “I miss the farm.”
I’ve seen this on several other blogs and I’ve been thinking about it all day…especially those who encouraged my faith along the way…
Let’s play tag-if you have a blog, TAG you’re it! Copy and Paste your answers to these questions onto your blog!
Four Things about Me
A) FOUR PLACES I GO OVER AND OVER: Church, Target, the library, and crazy.
B) FOUR PEOPLE WHO ENCOURAGED MY FAITH ALONG THE WAY: My mom, John, Fr. Kevin (back then, just Kevin from IVCF), and countless others…Fr. Chuck, Bishop Kelshaw and his daughter, Fr. Evan, Fr. Stace, Fr. Lou…I am one lucky chica.
C) FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS: green chile, red chile, anything maple flavored, and carrot cake, or maybe frou-frou sandwiches. Or ice cream, or fancy salads. This is hard. It’s a four way tie for fourth place.
D) FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW: 1.) Las Cruces…it’s warm there. The windy season is probably over by now. And it never snows in April. 2.)San Diego, because I’ve wanted to go ever since high school, but only if it’s warm. 3.) Tucson, Arizona. 4.) Anywhere with John.
E) FOUR MOVIES I WOULD WATCH OVER AND OVER: Casablanca, Ocean’s 11, Guys and Dolls, Philadelphia Story
F)FOUR THINGS I LIKE ABOUT THE ORTHODOX CHURCH: It makes sense to me, mostly, finally. It’s not all about me anymore. Icons. Sacraments.
G) FOUR OF MY FAVORITE HOBBIES: making jam/canning, growing things (like plants, indoors and out), making paper crafts, and possibly sewing, but I’m not sure yet.
When she needed to make a decision, my mom would often make a list of the pros and cons of each side, and go from there. I am trying to decide if today is a good day or a bad day. Why don’t we try it, what do you say? C’mon, it’ll be fun!
Today is a bad day because:
John went to bed with and woke up with a bad backache.
The toilet needed plunging again and was really gross.
The trash didn’t get taken to the curb today…I had offered to do it for John, whose back hurt, but didn’t do it in time. The truck was already past and I was just out of the shower.
Carolyn spilled an entire box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch on the carpet, a new, really big box.
I tried to cook two pounds of pinto beans in my old crockpot and it boiled over. Three times.
I found that Cheetos have that bad yellow dye in them.
Target refused to take my manufacturer’s coupon because it didn’t have a bar code, and I didn’t have time to argue with them or go to customer service, but I needed the product so bought it anyway.
Our neighbor’s dog, who was given about 3 months to live 4 months ago, has stopped eating.
It’s snowing again.
It’s been windy, windy, windy for the last two days.
Our sliding door, the one right next to the table where we have school, makes this horrible, awful, no good, very bad high pitched whistling noise whenever it’s very windy. (See above.)
I am pretty sure there is some hormonal involvement here, not to mention a bad attitude and a bunch of selfishness.
When I went to Scriptus to tell the whole world about my bad day, I couldn’t even log in, because I don’t know my password.
Today is a good day because:
We have a good chiropractor and John’s feeling much better.
I hadn’t cleaned the bathroom yet this week and got it done today!
The recycling got put out in time and we had a light trash week, anyway.
Cinnamon Toast Crunch isn’t the best breakfast for my children to eat, and now there’s a lot less. I don’t eat it, so I’m not missing it.
I learned not to cook more than one pound of beans in the crockpot at a time.
Similarly, my life will not be incomplete without Cheetos. Artificial colors and fried corn puffs? There’s a winner.
I can’t think of anything nice to say about Target just now, so I won’t say anything at all. Unless you count what I just said as saying something, but I don’t.
She’s been a good dog. John and I originally called her Worf dog because when we were looking at houses to buy, we noticed this one had a dog next door who said, “worf” everytime someone came by. Seemed like a good security feature. Then there was the time toddler William met her. They were the same height. Allie looked at William and said (you’ll never guess!), “worf!” William blinked a little and said “worf!” right back at her. They’ve been friends ever since.
When I was walking along the sidewalk into the store that sells the premium shampoo I insist on using, I was looking down, and looked up just in time to miss hitting a crabapple tree with little tiny white blossoms on it. That made me laugh. Such beauty in such an unattractive environment (the middle of a strip mall?) and such bad weather and attitude.
John came home and fixed my password so I can blog again. My children are healthy, we are warm, the plumbing is working again and clean, we have enough beans to last a looooong time, and well, how can it not be a good day? As my priest often reminds us, if God is with us, who can be against us?
Decision:
I’m giving this one to the good day category. Even though I’m tired and weary, and a lot more like the Pharisee than the publican, and a big old whiner to boot, God still loves me. That right there is the tipping point.
Forget spring break. I’m done with winter, and could use a break. Snowed again yesterday (about 5 inches on our back porch!) and is cold today. The sun keeps dodging behind the clouds. Sneaky sun.
At least William has been sick, so we haven’t had to go anywhere. Turns out he has a sinus infection. He’s had a fever since Tuesday that was not going away (and did I mention some chills?), so finally I called this morning. Good thing nothing very serious ever happens around here…I can picture it, one of the children gushing blood from a wound and me thinking, I don’t know, maybe we can just bandage it ourselves…do we really need to go in? I.e. it’s hard to judge for someone else how sick they are. Maybe I should rely on my gut a little more.
I’m looking at him right now, resting in our rocker/recliner chair (aka “The Sleepy Chair”) and he is very, very sleepy. He looks a lot like my brother just now. He downed a glass of cranberry juice. His appetite is unhindered by this illness. He nodded off earlier, and looks like he’s going to again. Reminds me of the time when he was a newborn and not sleeping, and was very, very hungry but I couldn’t figure that out…finally I got him a bottle and he downed the whole thing and slept for 6 hours. My motherly track record is impeccable, no?
And my hunch is he picked up some germ from the doctor’s office when we went in last week to get his eczema checked…I don’t even know how long he’d had it before I noticed it, as I hadn’t seen his skinny legs in months, and he wasn’t scratching them. Mother of the year, right here!
This all reminds me of when I was a social worker in child protective services. I was young and had no children, but lots of judgment for other parents. Lord have mercy.
I pray you are all well and have a fun weekend. I promised William ice cream.
And not just outside, either. It’s one of those blah days around here. My son has come down with a cold, and he means business. A little feverish the last two days, a bit run down…and that’s just me! At least William has symptoms like cough, sneezing, runny nose, etc. The days seem longer and longer, for some reason. I do not take advantage of my free time, which seems to be a lot lately. Oh wait, there’s that upstairs bathroom.
The children were supposed to be headed to NM today to visit their grandparents, but that plan was derailed as one of them (the grandparents) is ill. Now William is, too, so while I wouldn’t call it convenient, at least he can be home. We’ve pushed back the visit to after Pascha, which is when I usually like to take spring break, but it’s so late this year that there will only be about 3 weeks of school left when they get back! Almost like being on a track system!
if william learns nothing else all year, I’ve told him, it’s to use capital letters when he starts a sentence. still working on that.
I’ve come to a standstill on the jumper (i.e. I decided to let my mother-in-law put in the hem like she offered) so it’s pretty much all done except for the hem. I might just do it anyway myself, as she won’t be here for a few weeks, and I have the time. I can’t do it today, though, there’s no natural light! I don’t like sewing by lamp. How did Laura Ingalls do it?
The children started fencing lessons yesterday. It was an easy sell when I explained they’d have much better light saber fights. You probably aren’t supposed to bill it that way, I’m sure I’m violating some sacred fencing covenant, but they liked it all the same. I’ve decided that they really don’t have extra-curricular activities, as all their activities are part of my curriculum! So fencing is for P.E. and piano lessons are for music education.