a few random thoughts

Just heard "Falling Slowly" from Once on the Oscars...if you haven't heard the song yet, by all means listen to it, and if you haven't seen the movie, well...if you can handle lots of the f-bomb, see it soon. Anyhow....

Quick update. We took MA to the allergist a few weeks ago, and he diagnosed her chronic runny nose as a symptom of acid reflux which apparently she still suffers from....which would explain the runny nose, the constant ear infections even after tubes, and the random waking up/screaming episodes we have at 3 in the morning...SO, we've already seen her nose start to dry up. We're waiting for the sleep issues to subside, but after 2 1/2 years, they're pretty ingrained, so pray for us as we continue plodding along! Poor kiddo.

I need to paint our room...any suggestions for a soothing color?

Enjoy the random extra day we get this week! I always say I could use an extra day every week, so I'll have to see if I can take advantage of the weirdness of the 29th on Friday.

all you need is...respect??

So it's almost Valentine's Day, girls! I guess we all already know that. Our house was a flurry of foam hearts and glitter glue (I'd like to blow a big raspberry in the general direction of the person who invented glitter glue! What an obnoxious mess that my children adore...) on Friday as we tried to get a head start on class valentines. Ads for roses and chocolate are everywhere, and hearts are plastered on everything standing still...

So it made me think a bit. I kinda tend to blow off Valentine's Day...it's fun for my girlies, but it irritates me a little bit. A contrived holiday to force guys to try to get something perfect and thoughtful and sincere for their beloved? Or something else altogether? I don't know...

BUT I have been reading a very interesting book called Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, and I've been really intrigued by it. It's nothing I've not heard, but it's put in such a way that I can't help but think about it. I'm not finished with the book, but so far Eggerichs' basic premise is that, in the same way women are wired to need "unconditional love" from their husbands, so too men are wired to need "unconditional respect" from their wives. He states that couples enter a "crazy cycle" in their relationship when they interact without the love and respect they both need so desperately: "without love, she reacts without respect. Without respect, he reacts without love" (p. 16). A really interesting point he makes is that we need to always keep in mind that, for the most part, our husbands (and wives) are acting in "basic goodwill" toward us. Now, he's not talking about sin nature stuff here, but just thinking generally in terms of communication. I really see that with honey; too often I completely forget that he truly loves me, and wouldn't ever do something purposefully to hurt me. He's a wonderful man! I too quickly forget that truth when communication difficulties come, and I react with contempt to something he's trying to tell me...

Anyhow, interesting stuff! Very good for me to think about, especially as our church has been guiding us in a study of James, and we've recently touched on the "tongue" passages there. Here's a quote from something one of our pastors wrote:

James has quite a bit to say about the tongue. In 1:19 he tells us to be slow to speak. The majority of ch. 3 is devoted to taming the tongue. In this section he states that the tongue is able to corrupt the whole person. Then there is James 1:26 that says that a person’s religion is worthless if he cannot keep a tight reign on his tongue. James isn’t the only one who talks about the tongue. Ephesians 4:29 commands us to not let ANY unwholesome talk come out of our mouths. Jesus himself says in Matthew 12:34, “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

Here’s the deal: the Bible has a lot to say about the tongue, so what has your tongue been saying?

So it's been good for me to think about how I communicate respect to my sweet dear honey. It's my sincere desire that I'll be doing a lot better with that come Valentine's Day next year... Happy Valentine's Day girls! Hope everybody gets to enjoy some favorites (chocolates and fountain coke for me, thanks!).

darcy fans, unite!!

So maybe all you cultured types already knew about this (I heard about it from our dear Schmemma a while ago, but promptly forgot about it until last week)....

PBS's Masterpiece Theatre is in the middle of a series called "The Complete Jane Austen." This Sunday marks the first of 3 weeks of *sigh* Pride and Prejudice. That's right girls...our very own A&E version of Pride & Prejudice, complete with Colin Firth as the dear Mr. Darcy. Here in Dallas, it starts Sunday night at 8pm - we'll probably be feasting on quesadillas as we watch, for old times' sake (sniff, sniff)!!

hoe-what-sa?

OK, I've got a new favorite, ladies! Jojoba oil (pronounced, at least by me, ho-ho-ba).... I found out about it a few weeks ago at the spa party I attended, and decided to head down to the ol' health food store to find a bottle (where I had the whole "how is it pronounced?" debate for the first time; I asked the lady for "ho-ho-ba oil," she said "What?" So I spelled it, and she said, "Oh, joe-joe ba oil..." Then she couldn't find it, so she asked the other lady who worked there for "joe-joe-ba oil," and the other lady said, "Oh, you mean ho-ho-ba oil?" SIGH...) Anyhow, jojoba oil. Great stuff! My girls have (like most little kiddos) really sensitive skin, and this time of year I'm always looking for ways to keep their skin soft & unchapped. MA's nose runs constantly, so she's always red & ouchy under her nose, and K's chin & cheeks are chapped, no matter how much lotion or vaseline I douse them with... So I put some jojoba oil in their bath, and put a bit in their hands to rub on their faces, and no more red faces! It's lovely stuff. I've even been using it on my hands (until now I haven't been able to keep my knuckles from cracking), and under my eyes, on my legs after I shave, and even a bit in my hair...it makes everything so soft! Apparently the DNA in jojoba oil is like our own DNA, so it softens everything up, but doesn't make you greasy. I think I'm even going to add some essential oils or aromatherapy oils to some to make some massage oil, even...great stuff! I got a 16 ounce bottle from the health food store for $16, so it won't break the bank.

this overwhelming feeling....

Today I'm just feeling a tad bit overwhelmed with everything. It's normal, and I'm not about to run off to the Caribbean or anything (if only, right???), but nevertheless...

I think we're all adjusting to my new "work" schedule. The girls seem to be trooping right along, and MA even greeted her teachers happily today: "Teacher!" (Side note: she now wants to be the moon when she grows up. What do I say to that??). Anyhow, we're all adjusting...so we came home after our full day, and lo & behold, thanks to crazy wind today in DFW, our back fence was COMPLETELY blown over. Not only 2 or 3 pickets...our whole back fence, save like 2 sections. SIGH. So there's that to deal with...and then I find my new "welcome to the business" package from Sensaria (the fun spa stuff I'm going to try to sell) outside the front door. So where the heck am I supposed to put it? In my bedroom/office/craft room, on the craft/junk table that's COMPLETELY full? SIGH. So I made some tea, confident that the fence can be handled by honey, and that with a few hours I can find some room for my Sensaria stuff... Now I just have to convince myself (again) that I can actually be a rep for the company, without being one of those home-based business ladies that you hide from when you see her in Wal-Mart cause you know that's all she's going to do is try to sell you something (btw, if you're a home-based business person this is not a slam - I know so many wonderful women who are excellent at this...but I know that you all know the type I'm talking about, right?).

Anyhow, overwhelmed.

So I'm grateful that if God is for us, who can be against us, and that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because when I start feeling overwhelmed my brain usually starts attacking me, bringing up past failures and consequences of failures, making it very difficult to get over "overwhelmed." So thankful...

Off to help honey get the kiddos out of the bathtub, and fish toilet paper out of said bathwater. "It's clean toilet paper, at least," says honey... Fits right in to the way today has played out, at least!!

poor neglected blog!

I really am not happy that I don't have as much time these days to devote to the ol' blog. I guess it's just normal, it's how life works, that you get/start something new, and it's fun & exciting, and then it becomes part of the routine, and something else new works its way into the daily routine...

I started teaching pre-K at Miss K's mothers day out program the week before Christmas...today is my first day home with sick kiddos, so I'm taking a minute to update here. It's T/Th, from 8:30 until 2:30 (kiddos are there from 9:15 until 2:15). Miss MA has (finally?) warmed up to being in a classroom, and truth be told I think she gets a better nap at school than at home! I really love being in the classroom with preschoolers. Maybe that makes me crazy, but I've missed it...I get a bit of a rush going into the resource room, and am a bit too excited about bulletin boards and the die cut machine. ;o) I'm also going to start selling Sensaria products (think Aveda spa-ish stuff, but at home instead of a salon), and am excited about it, although I'm a bit nervous at the prospect of actually trying to sell stuff ("Oh, here, just take this...I've got plenty!!"). Just going to see what happens. If me doing this isn't a good fit, I'm not going to try to make it be one...it'll be fun to see what happens, right?

Miss K is feeling MUCH better. I'm so glad that we had her tonsils out...she had the worst breath, and now I know that it was from her yucky tonsils. Poor kiddo! Off to tend to my poor coughing bunnies. MA woke up with fever at midnight, and coughed until 4am, when she finally fell asleep. It's going to be a long day, I'm afraid!

today's thought...

From a MOPS Mom-E-Mail I opened this morning:

Cleaning your house while your children
are still growing is like shoveling
the walk before it stops snowing. Phyllis Diller

Amen to that!