Dessert, Busy Mommy Style

We had Chinese food for dinner. I had a craving for shrimp egg rolls. Jakob thought egg rolls would be yummy. Noah just likes food.

By the time we arrived at the fortune cookie portion of the dinner, the natives had grown restless and mayhem was about to break out. Without thinking, I stuffed my fortune cookie in my mouth as I shifted into chaos containment mode.

I forgot one thing - to remove my fortune.

Sigh.

I wonder if this means it won't come true.

Underwhelmed

Call it an exercise in cultural literacy. Call it submitting to peer pressure. Call it a desperate cry for help.

I did it. I read Twilight.

Yeah, I really did. And, ahem, I read New Moon, too. Almost everyone I know has read them. And loved them. Gushed about them. Even brainy women whom I respect. The bookstore clerk told me that the demand is so high they regularly run out of copies.

I don't know if I will read the third and forth books in the saga. I am clearly missing something.

I have turned into a stodgy ole fuddy duddy overnight or my romance-o-meter is out of whack. That, or everyone else is crazy.

A seventeen year old girl falls in love with a vampire who only looks seventeen. They have intense feelings for one another (isn't everything intense at 17?) but their relationship is not exactly stable due the fact that one of them wants to kill the other. In the second book, they break up (and no I am not apologizing for "spoiling" the plot. One of them is a teenager, the other a vampire, how unexpected could it be?) and there is a lot of depressed wallowing.

When they get back together, she asks him to turn her into a vampire in order to resolve the difficulties their differences create. He doesn't want to, but finally promises to do it at some unnamed time after she graduates from high school.

This is what passes for romance these days?? A teenage girl who wants to end her life and become a monster...for a guy?? Are you kidding me, America?

No comment

I saw this sign the other day and had to stop and take a picture:

Pirates and other thoughts

I confess that each time I hear a reporter say "pirates" I secretly want to giggle. Not because I am wholly unbalanced, but because I am a fan of Richard Scarry's books. I have some that are 3 decades old, saved from my own childhood, and many I have added to the collection because my boys adore them, too.




In Bedtime Stories, the first tale is about Uncle Willy, who plans to spend the day sailing, even though there are pirates in the area. He takes along a cherry pie for lunch. Predictably, he encounters the pirates - a rag tag gang of rats. Upon capturing his vessel, they make quick work of eating his pie. Uncle Willy bests the pirates in the end, and as the policeman leads them away, their faces smeared with pie, Lowly Worm says, "You bad pie-rats!"

I know, it is really lame. But it still makes me giggle!

Ouch

I think I am broken.

My left wrist is strained. My right shoulder is really out of whack. Both hurt like %&$! My neck and back ache, but what else is new? In other words, every time I pick up or hold Noah, lift Jakob onto the potty, put them into their car seats, or do a million other normal daily tasks, I just want to cry. I need a chiropractic adjustment, some serious acupuncture, a massage (or two) and a long soak in a tub.

But all that requires a lot of child-free time and Martin is going to be gone for the next few weeks. Maybe some duct tape will hold me together until he gets back.

Nail it to the cross

This morning was our very favorite kind of morning, a MOPS morning.

Our speaker was the pastor of the church that sponsors our group. He speaks to us a couple of times a year, and I always enjoy his messages. Today, he shared with us the importance of Easter. He read Colossians chapter 2 from The Message, emphasizing these words, "Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped cleaned, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's Cross."

Even though we know we are forgiven, most Christians continue to live with guilt from past sins. He invited us to let go of the the guilt, to nail it to the cross and leave it there.

He laid a wooden cross on a table, along with nails and hammers. He gave us all slips of paper on which we wrote down that sin that we continue to carry guilt over. One by one, we placed our papers face down on the cross and nailed them to it. How wonderful it felt to whack that nail into place!

When all were finished, he asked us if anyone wanted their sin back, maybe not quite ready to let go of the guilt. No one did. Then, he took the cross away, sins, guilt and all.

What are you holding on to? It is time to let it go. Jesus nailed it to the cross for you. You are forgiven. So live like it.

Adorable Picture Warning!

I declare today to be Cute Baby Picture Friday.

Noah really likes blueberries.

Jakob held some cheese from his pizza between his teeth so it dangled a bit, and declared himself an elephant.

Isn't he the cutest ring bearer ever?