One pinner said, "They would have been great, if they didn't look like poop!"

Why, oh why do I go on Pinterest and think for one minute that I could be creative, cute and crafty?  Please, someone remind me next time I get any brilliant ideas that I should stick to things like casseroles and crock pot recipes where you just dump stuff in and walk away.  I am a dump-stuff-in-and-walk-away kind of chef.  Too many steps and I've lost interest.

Roy's football themed birthday party inspired me to search for cake ideas.  I should have stopped with the football field cake.  Before it slid all over the front seat of the car on the way to the park, it looked pretty good.

Roy liked it, despite my wavy lines, and weird-shaped Patriot, and the fact that I didn't know that the "5" should have been on one side of the 50 yard line and the "0" on the other.  A true Nebraskan woman would know that.  Sometimes I inadvertently out myself as a geek from the Northeast.  Whatever.  I did my best.

But then I saw those adorable football cake pops in Pinterest and I just had to make them.  

Look, here they are....

Aren't they cute?  Don't you think they would have looked awesome sticking out of my football field creation?  Yeah, me too.

So I've never actually made cake pops before and the blogger made it seem so easy to make them.  Here's the recipe: http://bakedwithloveandbutter.blogspot.com/2010/02/football-cake-pops.html

I just jumped right in with the squishing and making little footballs.  I should have known they were not turning out like the picture when Bo, who was so thrilled to be helping, said, "Um, these look like turds."  I chalked it up to him possibly not wanting to be making cake pops on a Friday night.  I mean, even the best husband in the world has his limits.

In the fridge they went to prepare for an early morning chocolate dipping.  I hit the hay, confident that our misshapen lumps would magically transform into the best football cake pops so that I could one day start my own little Miss Betty Crocker blog about all the great stuff I make for my adoring kids.

In the morning, Rex opened the refrigerator and asked, "Mom, why are you keeping poop in the fridge?"

Apparently our fridge does not work magic and I will not be starting said blog.

Undaunted, I persevered, even though half of the "footballs" fell off their sticks and the rest maintained their irregular shapes.  They turned out like this:

Don't laugh.  I spent a lot of time on those, but maybe not quite enough time...I'm not really sure what went wrong.  They tasted really great once you got over their fecal-like appearance.

The good news is that the party was a hit, even though the cake pops were an "epic fail."  (Those are Roy's words.)

Happy Birthday Roy!

On This Hill I Am Willing To Die

Normally, I do not consider my children "strong-willed," which could be symptomatic of my weak-will as a mother.  I mean, there's nothing to fight about when you get your own way all the time.  That's one possibility.  Another is that we've all just adjusted to each other and they know what to expect and I know what to expect and so there's no use getting all in a crumple about stuff that doesn't really matter.
We rarely have discussions about what really matters except when there is a difference between what I think really matters and what my children think really matters.  Normally these kinds of conversations do not get too out of hand because we give lots of choices that strongly encourage our kids to see things our way.  ("I know you don't think it matters to eat your vegetables and that's fine, but daddy and I don't think it matters to eat dessert so it's your choice," for example.)

Mostly, we don't make our kids do things and yet we have pretty helpful, responsible kids who do their chores and obey the rules at school and eat their vegetables.

There is one thing we force our children to do and this has summoned the strong-will of our young son, which emerges with Hulk-like fury.

I've heard it said by wiser mothers that when dealing with a strong-willed child, one ought not engage in a battle unless one is willing to die on that hill.  I like that advice.  The one thing Bo and I have decided our kids will do, no matter what, is become strong swimmers.  That's not to say that if they become ax murderers, but they can swim we'll be satisfied as parents, but you know what I mean--it's a non-negotiable.  Pretty much, every summer they can count on taking swim lessons or joining swim team or some kind of organized swimming instruction that will improve their water safety and swimming ability until, at some point, we have deemed them not-likely-to-drown-in-open-water and they can graduate from this family requirement.

Apparently, we have a difference of opinion about whether or not "becoming a strong swimmer through organized instruction" matters.  The hard-fought battle ended with a pizza party to celebrate the completion of swim lessons, but may I admit that mama almost went down in that war plane?  Seriously.  At 7 years of age, the weapon systems have become so advanced that I almost don't realize I'm being shot down.  When Hulk didn't win, he employed Black Widow, that manipulative spy who let's you think you are doing the interrogation when in reality, you are the one being interrogated.  Sneaky.  How does a 7 year old become a master manipulator?  I don't know, but I've got one on my hands and he is gooood.  I can simultaneously cringe and beam with pride when I write that because I do want my kids to strive for excellence and he could become an excellent spy someday wearing down the defenses of the enemy through his cunning...that is, if he doesn't use his talents to become an ax murderer.  I must remind him of always using his abilities for good.

For those of you with real strong-willed children, may your war plane stay air-worthy and your kids become strong swimmers!

My No-Blog Summer

For those of you I haven't seen or who didn't get the update on Facebook, Bo got a job!!  I'm sorry I left you hanging.  He started a new job with a great little company in our great little city of Ralston.  It's doing home care, which is exactly what he wanted to do and we are so, so thankful that it all lined up quickly and that none of Roy's fears of being homeless and eating out of dumpsters came true.  (Could he be a worst case scenario thinker like his mama?  That is not the quality I was hoping to pass on to my children.)  Anyway, thank you for praying and supporting us through this.  We have felt so loved and blessed.

I had this great idea for a series for my blog called "Lessons from the Pit" just keeping with the hairy arm pit theme from my earlier post.  However, prior to summer starting I had resolved not to blog during the summer.  Actually, I had resolved not to do a lot of things during the summer.  Mainly, stuff I put on my to-do list that no one cares about except me, like blogging and sewing a cover for the giant hole in our ottoman or organizing our filing cabinet.  

The older my kids get the faster time flies and I realize that summer is this gift where we can spend so much time together and reconnect and recalibrate some things that have gone wonky through the busyness of life.  This summer my kids begged me not to send them to sports camps or VBS or any of that summer busy stuff.  When I asked them what they wanted to do this summer their unanimous reply was, "STAY HOME!"  

This is not easy for me.  I work from home and frankly, it's not that fabulous to work from home with kids around all day every day.  What I realized is that all of the stuff I drag my kids to is really for my benefit.  JUST GIVE ME SOME PEACE AND QUIET!!  

Now summer is over and it is so quiet I could cry, but the last thing I am wishing for is that I would have kept up my blog or that I would have sewn that cover or that I had all of my utility bills in order.  My necessary work got done one way or another and they weren't super excited about showing apartments or running to the office, but we all survived.  They even earned some money by hosing off air conditioning units and cleaning hallways, which they promptly spent on Pokemon cards and rollerskating, the only thing they really wanted to leave home for.

So welcome back to my blog.  For those of you east coast people with kids still at home--get of the computer and enjoy the chaos!!  It will be over before you know it.

Life Can Be The Pits!

OK I had the most hilarious blog post planned for this photo until something really un-hilarious happened this week.  Truly.  You would have cracked up all day after reading it, but sadly I am not meant to be funny.  I keep telling God that I would like to keep it all very light and fun and keep a lid on the hard parts of life, but He simply won't let me.

What happened, you ask?  Well, one day my wonderful husband had a great job with flexible hours and good benefits and a boss and co-workers and patients who liked him and everything seemed fine and then the next day he didn't and it wasn't.  Out of respect for my husband and his former employer I won't go into details about all that, only to say that I have never been more shocked and unprepared for a thing in my life.

Fairly quickly I've cycled through about all the stages of grief.  The shock and disbelief.  The sadness.  The anger.  The fear.  The acceptance.  Are there more?  Some days I cycle back through them again just in case I missed something the first time.  It's only been a few days really, I'm sure the cycle has just begun.

In all my confusion over this happening, it has been helping me to focus on what I know to be true.  Here are just a few things I've settled on:

• Whoever my husband works for next is very lucky.  One thing I love about Bo is that he is a person who will be better--not bitter over this.  He will learn from this experience and grow from it.  I even offered to share my feelings with his former boss (OK I would never do that in real life--only in my fantasy world) and his response was total compassion for him.  Who responds that way?  Oh, I can think of one person, but he was also God in the flesh...the same One who has gripped my husband's heart in a way that makes him kind to everyone.

• It is wise to prepare for the unexpected.  Just because people like you and you get good performance reviews and raises does not mean that your job is 100% secure.  If you do not have an emergency fund, please start one.  Today.

• There can be joy in the midst of pain.  The one thing I really appreciate about going through painful times is that it seems to awaken my senses.  One day I've become so numb that I am gliding through life without feeling anything, but then the sensation of pain brings back all the feeling and I'm no longer immune to the immense joy there is to feel in this world.  I don't know how else to describe it and I'm not saying I want to go through pain exactly, but I don't want to live numb either.  If the low, lows are what allow for the high, highs, well, please bring me low, but please make it quick.  All I know is that I am experiencing joy every day as we recount the times we've been rescued in the past and as we thank God for how he is meeting our needs today.  He is faithful and there is great joy in that.

I'm sorry for not being funny.  Sometimes life is the pits and there's just nothing funny to say about it.  It's not to say that I've lost my sense of humor, it's just that it's hard to be witty when you're busy being bewildered and somewhat uncertain about what the future holds.  

We would love you to pray with us through this.  I will definitely keep everyone updated and I'll probably have more stuff to process here.  If it's too heavy you can take a break for awhile and come back when our world isn't still rocking.

Til then I leave you with the real truth..."Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance."  James 1:2

Published!

Check this out!!

Sometimes when I'm not blogging, I'm writing articles for magazines.  I'm not kidding.  Check out page 36 and you will see....

Someday I will tell you the story of how it came to be that I wrote an article for a magazine that they actually published.  Today I want you to read my article---and all of the other great articles in the magazine!!  Sheesh, I can't stop writing "article in a magazine."  Think I'm excited?  You know it.  Now click the link above and give me some love.

Books Worth Reading: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

This is the quote that convinced me to read this book, "...for both men and women...the most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women.  Time spent with men doesn't make a difference."  I guess my inner sociologist was awakened again and needed to be fed.  

Gretchen Rubin goes on a year-long quest to increase her own personal happiness.  The systematic way she does it seems like the last thing that would work, but at the end she claims that it did.  It's her story, I'm not going to argue.  In fact, it makes me want to try my own happiness project, which she highly encourages and has a website devoted to here. 

Each month, Gretchen chooses an area of her life she would like to improve starting with health and including marriage, kids, work, finances and friendship.  Coupled with research and anecdotes about personal achievements and failures in each area, Gretchen highlights specific goals she worked toward that month.  It's kind of like a New Year's Resolution on steroids.  

This was a great book to read three months in to the New Year when those hastily promised resolutions are not seeming so attainable.  It's a good reminder that growth takes time and that happiness in life often comes as a result of the things we do every day rather than a one-time burst of emotion.  

If anyone wants to do a happiness project with me we can start a group.  I have a non-milestone birthday coming up that could warrant a recommitment to some goals and dreams that I have yet to reach.  

Books Worth Forcing Upon Your Children: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

This is the book from which the movie Hugo is based and, to be honest, I actually brought home the book so that my kids would be interested in seeing the movie.  That doesn't seem quite right does it?  While standing at the Redbox I would suggest Hugo over and over, probably out of fear that we might come home with The Toothfairy 2.  My attempts failed enough times that I decided to change strategy.  It did work, after I forced my kids to listen to the book.  Turns out, they didn't want to read the book either.

(What is up with that Scholastic?  My kids love movies and books and yet, this pair held no appeal for either of them on the front end.  That is why I am taking it to the blog.  Just doing my small part to help out your marketing team.  I know, the 10 people who actually read my blog are going to have a huge impact.  But seriously, this is a great book and kids should be flocking.)

Maybe the fact that the book is 4" thick is a deterrent for kids.  I don't know why.  I mean, in our video game saturated culture I can't imagine a kid being intimidated by a mere 526 pages.  What you can't tell at first glance is that many of those pages contain pictures that tell the tale as brilliantly as words.  Oh, but the words are brilliant too.  Once the whining stopped after I explained that we would be reading this book at bedtime or they could go straight to bed without our delicious evening snuggle, it became one of those books we could hardly put down.  "One more chapter," became the chorus, which is music to any storyteller's ears.

What is it that makes this book so intriguing?  Well, it begins with the captivating premise that a twelve year old boy is living alone in a train station.  (Every kid loves a story about other kids making it on their own.  That's why we loved The Boxcar Children growing up.)  You have to keep reading to find out how he came to be alone and why he feels he must keep this a secret.  Then a seemingly heartless old man takes something from him and he must try to get it back.  In the process, he discovers that the old man has a mystery of his own and is somehow connected to his late father through a mechanical man with a secret message.

We ended up truly enjoying this book and as soon as we finished we rented the movie at Redbox for family movie night.  Warning--the movie is long like the book and I'm told that it's better in 3D, but we enjoyed watching how the mystery unfolds while the characters came to life on screen.

Caffeine Addiction and Head Injuries--My Post-Lent Sacrifice

Before Lent I read an article about giving something up for the season, which is not part of my Methodist upbringing I can assure you, but the author listed some great reasons to adopt this discipline so I decided to join my Catholic sisters and sacrifice something for 40 days. I want to grow in dependence on God and humility toward my fellow women...yes, count me in! The question is, how to choose? What would be sufficiently costly? The article said to ask myself what I could not live without?

Easy.

Facebook and Coffee.

Shallow. I totally know. Can I give you my excuses? Can I? OK thanks. Here's the reason for my Facebook addiction: I am alone most of the time. I am not an alone kind of girl. Facebook helps me feel like there's people around even when there isn't. So when I'm lonely, I log on and check out what my 600+ closest friends are up to. (Bo calls me "Facebook easy" because I'll say yes to anyone who invites me to be their friend.) As you can imagine, keeping up with over 600 friends takes A LOT of time. I confess, it has become a huge distraction/waste-of-time.

As for coffee...I'm just addicted. Plain and simple.

So I wimped out. I chose Facebook. Only I didn't give it up completely because it is useful and people actually communicate with each other there. It's a great tool when used correctly--how else would I have known to bring lunch to a friend whose daughter was in the hospital or collected some great baseball stuff for a kid in our town who has never played and his parents can't afford all the gear? So I didn't go cold-turkey. I just needed to set some parameters. I'm realizing how pathetic this is as I write it...my big sacrifice in life for 40 days was to limit my Facebook time to 20 minutes every day. Wow, I would make a terrible Catholic!! Really, Jesus died for me and I give myself a time limit?

A theological aside: This just proves, yet again, that the Christian life is all about GRACE. When we hold up our piddly offerings next to His outrageous love, there is no doubt that He is the one who accomplishes the thing.

It turns out that my meager sacrifice was, and is, a really good thing. I installed this thing (maybe they call it an application) on my browser called Waste No Time and it locks me out of Facebook after 20 minutes. And no, I don't have one of those fancy phones that let's me look at it on there so I really was limited to 20 minutes. Guess what? Even though Lent is over I'm keeping it. It's good for me.

One result is that since I only had a few minutes to read people's updates I decided to unsubscribe to a bunch of people. I didn't go as far as Un-friending them because that's not exactly how I feel about them, but there are a number of people that I don't really need to know what's happening in their lives on a daily basis. This is reality. Sorry 600+ friends. I know, we're so close you are devastated. Please, forgive me.

So all in all, despite my pathetic offering, I've been feeling like practicing this discipline for Lent was a positive. But THEN...

something REALLY crazy happened....

A week before Easter I got some kind of stomach bug and for two days I stopped drinking coffee. The reason I figured it out was because my head was killing me. Bo asked me if I was feeling better and I had to say that my stomach was fine, but I felt like CRAP.

That was all I needed to start part 2 of my meager Lenten sacrifice, but by then Lent was practically over. I decided to go for it anyway. My theory is that if you can get past the first two excruciating days you've done the hardest part. So here I am, it's been over a week and I have not had any coffee. Not a drop. I have had some tea, which I'm not sure is decaffeinated because it's from China and I can't read Chinese. This is, once again, where the GRACE comes in and believe me I need it; this one is way worse than a Facebook time limit.

Hoo boy. It's not pretty. I'm dragging, which last week I thought was because of having a sick kid and not being able to exercise, but no, I'm just dragging.

I'm moody. Wait. I was probably like that before. But really, it's worse. Ask my family.

This is the weirdest symptom--I have sustained multiple head injuries since quitting coffee. I'm not kidding. I just keep bumping my head for no apparent reason. One of them would be quite obvious were it not for my slightly-manly, bushy eyebrows covering the bump. It's like my head has become uncoordinated or something and I truly attribute this to caffeine withdrawal. Now don't go reporting this to some medical journal. My one-woman study is hardly scientific. It's just a theory.

Despite these set-backs I am determined to persevere. I'm wondering though if I will go back to my addiction as soon as the 40 days are over or if, like my Waste No Time thing, I will decide to keep it.

Please weigh in. Have any of you gone caffeine-free? Please tell me the benefits since I have yet to experience any. I've read a few articles online about how terrible it is to be addicted to caffeine, but I gotta tell you, I really didn't mind all that much. I guess there are worse things to be addicted to, but there are probably better things too.

If I don't stop banging my head on things I may just forget that I've given up coffee altogether!

Image Credit

I Don't Want To!

Bo asked me the other morning why I haven't been writing recently. Roy suggested that I just don't know what to write about. I thought about it for a second and instead of taking the easy out by agreeing with him, I decided to confess my real reason. If I can't tell my family the truth, who can I tell?

I do know what to write about. These last few weeks I've been going through a kind of internal struggle. Heart level stuff that has been kind of festering and needs to be dealt with. One of those seasons where God is doing surgery on an old wound.

I know exactly what to write about, but here's the truth--I don't WANT to!

I wish I were an expert at something. Then I could write about that thing with confidence. But I'm not. I am one of those people who only acts like I know things, but really, I only know a little bit about a few things. I can't write from a position of authority.

The only thing I know anything about is what goes on in my own heart and mind. These are the things I write about because that's all I've got. But when I discover an ugly truth about the state of my heart and mind, I'd really rather not talk about it. I'm too fragile to be a writer.

So I've been holding back and holding out. I say that God is healing things, but I know that the real healing will come as I peel the bandages off and let the light in. And I know that writing about my journey will help me sort it out...it always does. Right now I'm not sure where to even begin so I'm beginning by explaining my absence. It's OK if you didn't notice I was missing.

Here's my promise to myself---I will keep writing--even if I don't want to. I will sort out the ugly heart stuff and share and trust that God knows how fragile I am and will not let me shatter to pieces...or if I do shatter to pieces, he will glue me back together!

Image credit

Read this book...Switch

I really should have been a sociologist or psychologist because I love this stuff. Human behavior is fascinating to me, especially when brilliantly communicated through stories as Dan and Chip Heath do in their second best seller Stick: How to Change When Change is Hard.

Here's the premise--Everyone has a rational side and an emotional side. Merely appealing to the rational side is not enough to make lasting change (think health--we know eating healthy and exercising are important, but why don't we do it?"). Turns out, our emotional side is like an elephant--strong, powerful and hard to steer. Our rational side is like an elephant rider--great at giving direction and seemingly in charge, but easily exhausted and completely powerless when the elephant has ideas of its own.

The 3 keys to change are:

1. Direct the rider

2. Motivate the elephant

3. Shape the path

The studies in the book are fascinating. They open with a study at a movie theatre. Moviegoers were given buckets of stale popcorn of different sizes that were weighed before and after the movie. Turns out, people with bigger buckets of popcorn eat more. So if you don't want to eat as much, use a smaller container. This is an example of shaping the path.

Filled with stories and examples of why change works in some cases and doesn't work in others, this book will challenge how you think about your own behavior and give you practical ideas to make changes in your life.

If you live in the Omaha area, this is our next book club selection. We will be discussing it for the April 5th meeting at 7pm at the Panera on 72nd St. in Papillion.

The FAILURE Files: Do NOT try this recipe!

Juice Pulp Muffins:

4 cups fruit pulp

1 cup sesame or olive oil

3 eggs

1 cup honey

3 cups whole grain flour

1 T baking soda

1 t nutmeg, cinnamon or spice of choice

1 t vanilla

Mix fruit pulp with honey, eggs, vanilla & oil. Add dry ingredients. Pour into muffin tins (greased). Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Some efforts to be frugal turn into a flop. I found this recipe online for rescuing juice pulp from your juicer. Since we love making fresh juice, I thought this would be a great idea. I still think it might be, which is why I actually included the recipe I don't think you should try. What you shouldn't try is making this muffins with...

GRAPEFRUIT PULP!!!

Oh they smelled soooo gooooood. I wanted them to be yummy, but no, they were terrible. Awful. Disgusting even.

I made my friend try one and she actually spit it out!!! I gave some to my neighbor who eats everything with a warning that he may lose faith in my cooking skills. I have not heard back.

Now I know. I don't think grapefruit pulp can be repurposed. It is trash. You should not eat trash...even disguised in muffins. (You wouldn't put poop in muffins. See, there I go again?!)

This little muffin experiment is one of my many, many, many failures in this life. It's not a terribly important one, although honey is kind of expensive and I used a whole cup of it only to dump the entire batch in the trash. Ugh. I'm thinking of the failures that have cost a whole lot more than that.

But you know what is great about failure? I get to try again with more experience. If failure is not an option then neither is success. If I have failed then at least I've done something.

It is way more fun to succeed, but I can honestly say that every failure, even the costly, painful ones, have changed me in ways that I would not exchange for all the success in the world. I'm not making that up. I am way less of a jerk now than I was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. If you think I'm a jerk now, just be glad you didn't know me back then!!

The other great thing about failure is that you can warn your friends. So don't try this recipe with grapefruit pulp--it will be a waste of time and honey!

You're welcome.

Mystery Puddle

I have this friend who has been motivating me to tackle the clutter and mystery puddles in my home. Every day she emails a task to complete with before and after pictures from her own home. If you need a friend like this, I will share her with you. I could never be this friend because I can't manage to do much of anything every single day for months at a time. I've barely completed half of the list and I'm OK with that. Something is better than nothing.

One of this week's challenges was to clean the fridge. This is was an excellent week for me to do it because I used up my grocery money a week before the month was over so by Wednesday there was almost no food in there. Ketchup and celery anyone? Mmmm. What I discovered when I finally juiced all of those oranges and grapefruit that were getting kind of wrinkly in the "crisper" drawer was that I had a couple of puddles of some unknown substances at the bottom of the fridge. From the way they were all dried up, I'm sure they've been there a really long time. One was definitely meat juice and the other was something super sticky.

Why am I telling you this?

I'm not sure.

Maybe it's because I revel in gross things. My little sister claims that I purposely try to weave the word "poop" into every conversation. It's not true. Sometimes, like on Sunday when I was being interviewed at our church's annual meeting, I accidentally talk about "pee." I can be really, super inappropriate without even trying.

Maybe it's because I want to prove that I have done something productive with my life. My goal to blog every day has obviously fallen by the wayside so what have I been doing all this time? What do I do all day when my kids are at school and I'm "working" from home? Sometimes I'm unearthing marvels of science in my very own appliances. Do I have a fabulous life or what?

Maybe I'm being philosophical and I just want to show that sometimes you clean out one area of your life only to uncover something even worse lurking below. My shriveling grapefruit were covering up the really gross stuff. As long as they were there, I could ignore the puddles. It took a close friend and a really tight grocery budget to get me to the place where I couldn't look the other way any longer. But now that I've done it, I feel so clean and so free!

Let's go there. I feel that way about my heart. So often it's a mess. I long to be clean and free on the inside, but sometimes I don't want to reveal the mess underneath. It's too painful. I'm thankful for friends who listen to me and let me process in my own way and tell me the truth and help me to live in the freedom that is mine because Jesus lives in me. I need to let that wash over me a little bit right now.

Ripping it open a little bit. What is it about my children that just wrecks me? I was feeling in such a great place until one of my kids started melting down and not behaving how I would choose for him to behave. I put myself in a situation that I thought I could control and guess what? I couldn't. Can you believe that? I cannot control my child's wayward mouth. The insanity is thinking that I can when I clearly can barely control my own!! Poop. See? Just had to work it in.

I leave you with the one Word that leaves me with hope:

"Search me Lord and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:23-24

Why I Must Be A Native Nebraskan (at heart)

Never in my whole life did I ever wish to live in the state of Nebraska. The thought never even occurred to me that such a thing could ever happen. Zimbabwe, yes. Nebraska, no.

So it's weird that I am firmly convinced that Nebraska is my true homeland. My soul must have been born here, if not my body. I mean, I know my body was born in a small town in Upstate New York so I don't mean that literally. I'm fairly certain I was not adopted or anything because my hands look exactly like my mom's and I'm almost exactly like my dad in some ways it's scary. I think my dad would make a great Nebraskan actually, except that there's no trout stream for fly-fishing. Since I didn't inherit the fly-fishing gene from my dad, Nebraska works out perfectly for me.

I could list the endless benefits of living in this great state, but I am a storyteller at heart so I want to tell you what happened at the grocery store the other day and see if it doesn't just explain it all.

I was at No-Frills. For those of you out of state, the fact that we have a grocery store called No-Frills should just be enough for you to understand my love of this place. I love me a Wegmans now and again, but frankly, I love me a good deal even more than 52 kinds of olives. I digress.

At the check-out line, the lady in line ahead of me noticed that the woman ahead of her left her postage stamps behind. As any normal person would do, she pointed this out to the cashier. However, then she says that the woman is her neighbor and that she would just take the stamps by her house and drop them off to her.

This is exactly something I would do. That's not the weird part. Here's the crazy thing--the cashier said, "OK." And the lady said, "If Mary comes back, tell her that Connie has them."

And Connie walked out of the store with Mary's stamps...at least we hope that's what happened.

I'm watching this whole thing and my inner North Easterner wants to scream, "COME ON! You are not letting that lady walk out of the store with someone else's stamps!" But really, when you think about it, that is the best chance that Mary is going to get her stamps. You know she is going to go crazy turning her purse inside out looking for those babies and she's going to assume that they fell out of her wallet in the parking lot or some silly thing. She's not going back to the store because she won't know they're missing for days. And my inner Nebraskan is screaming, "Yes, take her those stamps--that is the most kind and reasonable thing to do."

I'm sure that stuff like this happens in small towns all across America every day....but this is Omaha...the largest city in the whole dang state. And it makes me love this place and feel at home with my people who do nice stuff for each other and get to know their neighbors and take 'em their postage stamps when they accidentally leave them behind at the market.

I may have mentioned years ago in a blog post that fast food restaurants just recently stopped accepting checks in Nebraska. Checks. This place is precious. Can you feel the trust in humankind?

What I love the most is that I am not a freak here. In Boston, when I collected friends on the public bus, I came to realize that collecting friends on the public bus is weird. Even if those friends live in your neighborhood and you see them every single day at the same time at the same stop. The "normal" thing to do is not make eye contact and never, ever learn their name. I do not have a Boston soul.

In Buffalo, I make an attempt to befriend someone to find out later that I was so stalkerishly friendly that she checked me out with other people before agreeing to a play date. I only know this because we became good enough friends in the end that she felt like she could confess this early suspicion. I do have a bit of a Buffalo soul, at least I left some of my soul there when we left...

....BUT my soul truly came alive in Nebraska where I am not the only one who talks to strangers and enjoys living in naive trust in humankind. Even though being a landlord is the one thing that can sap every ounce of faith you have in people, I stubbornly refuse to give up hope.

Actually, I still might be a freak, but Nebraskans are so nice they'll never tell me so.

How old do you have to be to be sexy?

This question is up for debate at our house because I keep having to remind my 7-year-old that 7-year-olds cannot be sexy and if anyone tells him otherwise that person is wrong....very wrong...on so many levels.

My kids don't live in a bubble so somewhere, somehow they have heard the song, "I'm sexy and I know it," and it turns out that this is an incredibly catchy song. I am kind of crazy neurotic about looking up lyrics to songs before I let them be downloaded for the simple fact that when your 7-year-old starts singing, "I'm sexy and I know it," the world just feels off. I've had to disappoint my kids numerous times by saying, "No, there's stuff in that song that I don't want you singing--even though you have no idea what it means." I can guarantee you that this song does not make the cut even though I'm sure it's a wonderful song. So wonderful that kids sing it on the playground and stuff. Awesome.

So yesterday when I once again reminded my 7-year-old that he is not and cannot be sexy, Roy (my 9-year-old) asked, "How old do you have to be to be sexy?"

Great question.

Let's ask the furnace repair man.

Tim, the furnace repair man, voted for 18.

Seems reasonable enough. That's probably the correct answer.

I asked Bo when he got home and his answer was 35. After further discussion however, we decided that 35 is probably on the way downhill on the sexy meter. (Although it's kind of nice to know that he thinks I'm sexy at 35.) Then he started to say something about reaching puberty around 15 and that's when sexiness kicks in. Holy cow, I had to put an end to that theory right there. I made it clear that they will not be sexy at age 15. Sheesh Bo, what are you thinking?

In the end, we didn't exactly answer the question other than to say that you have to be an adult and that they do not need to be worried about it for a long time.

This is the world we live in people. Lord help me! No really, Lord, please help me every day navigate these treacherous parenting waters.

James 1:5 "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."

I love book reports: The Language of Flowers

I remember hating book reports back in the day, but now I love telling people about great books I've read. Not being graded helps take the pressure off. Choosing what books I get to read also helps. (Nothing like being forced to read a book and then forced to write about why someone else should read it. Writing, "You should read this book if you are forced to," never wins points.)

OK so here's my book report, which will be short because I don't want to spoil it for you.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh is a moving novel about a girl who ages out of state care and makes her way in life. As you get to know Victoria as an "adult," the author transports us back to her past to fill in the history of why she is planting a garden in a public park and choosing homelessness instead of heeding the advice of her state assigned social worker to get a job to pay her rent in the transitional housing provided by the state.

It's obvious from the beginning that Victoria has endured enough pain and abuse to permanently sear her ability to trust anyone, and yet there is a faint glimmer of evidence that someone along the line loved her and taught her the beautiful language of flowers, the one thing that speaks meaning to her and gives vent to her buried emotional pain. As the author uncovers her past, the depth of understanding and compassion grows for this strange girl who is a creative genius with no ability to conform to normal social conventions. It takes someone who can see through the exterior and recognize the genius inside, allowing Victoria to exercise her gift without prodding into her strange behavior, to bring healing and reconciliation.

That's all I'm going to say about the plot because I truly can't give it away. Here's how this book impacted me personally. First, it is truly disturbing to realize how destructive it is to a human soul to be raised without love. Not to excuse personal responsibility, but this author showed in a personal way how impossible it is for someone to know how to love without ever having experienced it. It's also sad that there comes a point where someone can't experience it without sabotaging it because they have been so broken time and time again. I'm grateful that she also showed that there is always hope and that love wins out in the end.

We've considered becoming foster parents at some point and this book simultaneously inspired and terrified me. As idealistic as I am that love can conquer all, this novel reveals that albeit true that love and reconciliation is possible, the process could be extremely long, painful and ugly. That's where I rest in the truth that when God calls someone to something difficult that He will also give them the grace to walk through the hard things.

One surprising thing that moved me in this book was the language of flowers itself. I am not a flower person. Years ago I told Bo not to waste his money on them because I really don't care about them. However, I absolutely love the idea of flowers conveying secret messages and that each flower is tied to some meaning. See, I am a word person, not necessarily a visual beauty person. So, I may just become a flower person after all, but first I'll have to invest in a Victorian era flower dictionary.

Give it a read and let me know what you think.

Another TV / Video Games Come to Jesus Moment for our Family

Every so often, our family gets so sucked into our screens that we forget what on earth we are supposed to be doing in life. I don't blame my children. They learned it from watching me, not to mention that my job as a parent is to steer them in the right direction. You can bet that if they are getting away with something it's because I am letting them.

Lately, the iPod touch has been something I dream about flushing down the toilet one night while everyone is sleeping because we have been having so many fights about it. It is driving. me. crazy. So instead of screaming my fool head off, Bo and I issued this manifesto and required signatures upon reading. They are now posted where I can be reminded that my job is not to make my kids happy, but to teach them how to be functional human beings. This letter really isn't for them, it's for me.

I have to laugh a little because we gave this to them on Valentine's Day. True love is not always gushy. Sometimes love has to get tough. Enjoy!

Dear Roy and Rex,

Video Games and TV are a fun way to relax after our work is done. We want to practice good habits that will allow us to be happy and productive people in life. If we are too tired to work, then we should rest our eyes and bodies in bed or curl up with a good book. Watching TV and playing video games is not truly restful. You can watch TV or play video games when your work is done. Here is the definition of “my work is done”:

· Homework done (This includes practicing challenge words or any extra school work that is assigned.)

· Room Clean

· Bed Made

· Clean Clothes Put Away

· Dishwasher Unloaded

· Trash Out

· Recycling Cleaned Out

· Living room picked up

· 15 minutes of reading done

· One extra chore done and checked off your chart

· Ask mom what she needs help with

· When weather is nice—play outside!!!

If you’ve finished all of the above, then YES, you may relax with a TV show or video game.

Remember—TV is not a right--it is a privilege. You are in training for real life. If you sit around and watch TV/play video games all day, you will not have money to eat, nor will you make something of yourself. We want what’s best for you, not necessarily what you feel like doing in the moment. We love you that much!

Love,

Mom & Dad

Memo to Vacating Residents: Leaving cleaning products behind does not mean your apartment is clean

I've noticed a pattern over the course of turning over apartments for the past 3+ years. Some people leave cleaning products behind in lieu of actually cleaning their apartments. I'm not sure why this is exactly, but I'd like to offer a few theories I've been working on, usually while cleaning said dirty apartments.

Theory #1: They hope I won't notice how dirty the apartment is because I'll be so excited about all the free cleaning supplies.

Response: While I do love free cleaning supplies, I am not blind....or stupid. I think everyone here knows that I am the one who does the cleaning so even though I don't get paid extra when the place is really dirty, I'm still going to write it down on the check-out sheet. If you don't want to clean it, you are going to pay for it.

Theory #2: They know they apartment is dirty and I'm going to need those cleanings supplies after they're gone.

Response: I really want to believe that people are nice and thoughtful so I came up with this theory so that I can live in my "give everyone the benefit of the doubt" bubble.

Theory #3: Moving took way longer than they thought because they had no idea how much crap they had and they ran out of time to clean.

Response: This has happened to me. I have the best intentions, but moving is one of the most exhausting life experiences ever. Two times I have had friends offer to do all the cleaning after we left the state. This is one of those gifts that humbles you to the core because there is no way you could ever repay those people. I made the promise to pay it forward. I've only ever done it out of the goodness of my heart a couple of times, but since this is part of my job I just remember those times and consider my service a continuation of paying it forward. Also, it makes me sad for them that they don't have friends to help them move and clean like I do.

Theory #4: A misguided belief that the cleaning supplies themselves will magically come alive and do the cleaning for them.

Response: You've watched Fantasia one too many times. Actually, I secretly hold this belief. Sometimes I get the vacuum cleaner out of the closet and put it in the middle of the living room hoping that it will magically start working on its own. The closest this have ever come to happening is when my husband gets the hint and starts vacuuming without me mentioning it. The worst is when he gets sick of looking at it after several days and just puts it away without using it first. Then I get all upset because, "I was going to use that." And he's like, "Really, it's been sitting there for 3 days." And I'm like, "Yeah, but I really was going to get around to it and that vacuum sitting there was my reminder." (As if all the gross stuff accumulating on our unforgiving apartment-grade carpet is not reminder enough.) And he's like, "Whatever, I'm tired of tripping over it." And I know he's right so I shut up then because I really wasn't going to vacuum.

Those are all of the theories I've come up with so far. Please feel free to submit your own.

New Year Reboot

Yes, I make New Year's Resolutions. Every year. More than one actually, but they are all the same resolution really. Conventional wisdom says that you should just focus on one thing because you are more likely to stick with it. You can count on me to buck convention. I don't care what works. I want to pretend that this year I will finally become the well-organized, disciplined, productive, healthy, physically fit, highly spiritual, well-read, debt-free, immaculate housekeeper and basically perfect person I've always wanted to be.

Don't laugh.

So I sit down and write down goals. Our church has this thing called the Personal Growth Plan and I used to have to write one every year because I was on staff. Here's a link to it, if you want to see the example:

http://www.cccomaha.org/resources/docs/newsfeed/PGP2012.pdf

So I write down all kinds of stuff on there about how great I'm going to be at the end of the year.

By the end of the year, I pretty much feel like a complete failure because I'm not really how I imagined. BUT...then I look at my Personal Growth Plan from last year and realize that I actually did some of that stuff.

Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago I put all of our financial accounts in to Quicken (because we have some financial goals we need to work on so add that to my list). When I looked at our liability column I felt completely crushed and defeated. I started to think that those student loans will never go away. But then I went back to my Personal Growth Plan and one of our goals last year was to sell off our rental properties in Buffalo. By the amazing grace of God, we did. Gone. All of them sold, which is another story altogether. We didn't focus on paying down debt because we realized that we first needed to cut our losses and stop the bleeding. Then I think back to how much time and energy it took to accomplish this from afar. The phone calls, the stress, the spending half of our vacation to Buffalo working, the drama all took their toll. Now that it's over, we can move on and tackle other financial goals.

So I start the New Year hopeful.

Two years ago I committed to develop the habit of memorizing scripture in my Personal Growth Plan. For the first 6 months of the year I did nothing. Then I remembered that I had wanted to do this so I asked my mentor if she would help me--basically by giving me a weekly deadline so I would force myself to do it because while I don't seem to mind letting myself down, I really don't like letting other people down. I know, I really should have more respect for myself, but I'm just being honest about how I roll. I need lots of accountability or I will completely derail.

So this wicked smaaahht lady starts memorizing a few verses every week with me and now, a year and a half later, I feel amazed at what we've accomplished. Not that I want to be a walking Bible Dictionary, but I can tell you that this has become one of the best spiritual disciplines for helping me change. It's like God's voice infiltrating my soul. God's voice is waaaaay better than mine, let me tell you. If you really knew what my voice said half the time you'd really support my decision to replace that with something better.

There's some stuff on there that didn't even come close to happening. I started out great, but something happened and I fell off the track. Like exercising 10 minutes/day. It sounded so easy. Only 10 minutes a day! I was terrible about doing this. So I look at that and realize that exercising at home is a losing battle for me. I'm too distractible and can think of a million other things to do besides exercise. This year I joined a gym and had been going until the whole foot mole thing. (And by the way I feel like CRAP when I don't exercise so I'm motivated to start back up as soon as I can!)

I like to think of my New Year's Resolutions as an annual reboot. I like to start fresh and go hard after all of my goals all at once. The beauty of this for me is that I'm kind of an all-or-nothing person so let's say I only pick one thing. Let's call that thing "exercise." And let's say that something happens like I have stitches on the bottom of my foot and can't exercise for 10-14 days. If that was my only resolution I would be done. I would probably wallow in my failure and give up right then and there. (I was kind of sad and despondent for a few days, but that also could have been my period talking.)

Instead, I shift gears and work on other things like my goal of writing regularly and my goal of extreme grocery savings, which included reorganizing my pantry so that I know what we have and get better at using things up, and my goal of reading through the Bible in a Year, and my goal of calling my grandmas regularly.

Now that I think about it, if I ever get to the end of the year and feel satisfied that I have arrived, it's probably time to check out of this place and go live in glory. So for now I'm satisfied to be in process and achieving small victories and figuring out what my purpose is this year and even just today. So go ahead and reboot with me...we'll probably crash sometime this year, but maybe a few of our files will be recovered and we'll still have something to work with.

Found this quote and had to add it:

‎"I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am."
... John Newton (1725-1807)

When English Sounds Like Chinese

One of my biggest fears about raising kids in Nebraska is that they would grow up to be racist. It drives me crazy when people refer to anyone from a South American country as "Mexican." I think my Nebraskan brother-in-law used to say stuff like that just to ruffle my feathers, but because of his antics I became completely convinced that a long stay in this homogenous white-bread country would result in ignorance.

Here's where this fear originates. I grew up in homogenous white-bread rural New York. I had almost no exposure to anyone of a difference race or ethnic heritage besides my Peruvian cousins who came to visit every few years. Even then, I was so ignorant that I thought Peruvians look Asian (because their mom has Japanese roots). It's not that I wanted to be racist, I was just totally in the dark, which led to one of the most embarrassing questions I've ever asked in my life.

When I got to college I lived on a floor of a dorm called McLlu, which stands for the Multi-cultural Living Learning Unit. This was a special living community that you had to apply to live in. Well, that year, it turned out, no one applied to live there so the RA's made phone calls to incoming freshman to see if we wanted to live in McLlu. The reason we all said yes is that living on West Campus was supposedly the best so opting in to this dorm was a way to jump the lottery system and guarantee a spot on this coveted green.

I'm not sure how they selected people to call and ask about this living arrangement, but it seemed to me that they picked out weird names and went from there. None of us was particularly gung-ho about everyone living in harmony together regardless of race, country of origin or sexual identity. We were just kids away from home for the first time trying to make friends.

One of my first friends was a magnetic guy from New York named Aravind. I had never heard this name before so I had no idea what kind of name it was. Aravind was brown and had a weird name and being from New York I couldn't pinpoint his heritage by asking the question "Where are you from?." So in the spirit of embracing our multi-culturalness I asked him, "What are you?" (This is not the embarrassing question...just wait for it.) He said, "Indian."

I knew about Indians because I grew up a few miles from the Indian Reservation, but I knew enough to know that it wasn't cool to call yourself an Indian anymore...you were "Native American." So to show my cultural sensitivity I asked the clarifying question, "Oh, like Native American?"

"No," he replied ever so graciously, "like from India, Indian."

My face went beet red. I was totally mortified and embarrassed. I had never before in my life met anyone of Indian descent and I had just made it known that I was a cultural ignoramus. Aravind, being the gentleman that he was, excused my stupidity and we remained friends. If he were still alive I would ask him if he remembered this conversation and we would probably have a good laugh about it.

That conversation fuels my desire to spare my children the embarrassment of accidental racism...or cultural insensitivity...or making weird assumptions about people's heritage because of skin color.

As it turns out, I really can't spare them because it must be some kind of human nature thing or some weird curiosity thing that they inherited from me. They are guilty of making assumptions despite my best efforts to help them grow up a little more informed than I was.

Yesterday, I took them to the dermatologist who is very American sounding with obvious Asian roots. She talks a mile-a-minute and reminds me of my fast-talking younger sister in a way. Well, they didn't say or ask anything embarrassing in her hearing, but at home one of the kids said that she talked so fast she sounded Chinese.

What?!

"She did not sound Chinese!" I defended.

"Well," he backpedaled, "she sounded like she had an accent."

OK, if you spoke to this woman on the phone, you would not detect an accent. I mean, maybe she didn't grow up in Nebraska, the accent-less capital of the world as identified by West Communications, but other than being a fast-talker I could not begin to identify any accent whatsoever.

So I'm pretty sure that my kids just thought that she looked like she should have an accent. What is up with that?!?

It's not that I don't want my kids to be curious, it's just that I don't want them to offend anyone or make assumptions about people that aren't true (like she speaks Chinese because she looks Asian). I'm not quite sure how to teach that concept, other than to just say, "Just because someone looks Asian does not mean they speak Chinese." I want to teach them how to ask honest questions without offending.

So my friends with weird names or brown skin, please teach me how to teach this to my children in a way that does not offend you. It's too late for me to remove my giant foot from my mouth, but maybe they still have a chance.