My Meandering Mind

his is an old post from Six Short of a Dozen (January 15, 2008) but I found the ultimate tissue, and think it’s worth sharing…

I woke up feeling pretty miserable this morning, but I was determined to have our school day before the scheduled field trip in the afternoon. I got through the spelling test with Koala Bear easily and moved on to her older two sisters. Halfway through, the flood gates in my nostrils opened and I motioned for someone to “run grab a tissue quick”.

I should mention I have sensitive skin and almost always end up with an embarrassing and UGLY sore under my nose when I get a cold. I’ve been on a life-long quest for super soft tissues. Some search for gold, I just want a soft puff.

Artistic Flare came to my rescue and I quickly wiped my nose with the most incredibly SOFT tissue EVER! WOW. I’d struck it rich. My nose would never suffer again. I looked at this tissue of tissues with the cute little designs which look strangely like the ones on our baby wipes; you know those soft-for-the-sensitive-baby-bum baby wipes.

I arched an eyebrow and asked where she got it fearing the answer. It looked clean. Sniff. Smells clean. Gotta be clean, right?

Apparently, Little Miss Princess thought it would be fun to stuff her clean baby wipes in the tissue box. My thoughts? Let’s stuff some more in there, so I have a supply on hand. I’ve finally found my soft tissues.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

know - you’re stunned. I’m actually posting. Life has been … crazy, painful, precious, challenging …

I’ve missed blogging on my blogs, and it’s so good to be back. I can’t wait to catch up on your lives and catch you up on mine. Look for more family funnies, hard life lessons, and whatever else my meandering mind comes up with.

I will be updating this blog with some old posts from one of my other blogs. One I’ll be closing once I have what I want here. I turned off my Twitter update tool, and hopefully this won’t annoy my one or two subscribers.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

ay 2.
My poor guy is really feeling bad. He stayed home from work Tuesday, and rested on the couch. Which is a good thing, because I had some business to take care of thanks to The Love Dare.

Tuesday morning, I read the pages for day 1 (the book goes much deeper than the simple email challenge) with a humble heart. But that nagging comment from Monday night wouldn’t leave me alone. I set the book down, and said, “Okay, Lord, if I’m supposed to apologize to him, let him be awake when I go upstairs. But if I’m to simply learn from this and move on, let him be asleep. Because really, I don’t think he even heard the comment. And I’d much rather he be asleep.”

Jesus must have been laughing ’cause my guy was wide awake and checking emails on his cell or something. So I told him what I’d said (he hadn’t heard it), and apologized. Humble pie anyone?

I got back to my reading for day 2 and before I was halfway through, I had to go apologize to him AGAIN. Talk about God working things out in me through this dare. Phew. This time, I needed to apologize for ignoring his desire to cancel the bible study Monday night. You know, the bible study where I opened my big mouth and failed dare 1?

Had I really looked at him and not my own selfish desire to have friends over, I would have seen how sick he was and how much he really needed to rest. I giggled when I came up and said I had another apology for him. He laughed when I told him why, but I know he appreciated it. I usually like to go back for seconds when it comes to pie. Humble pie? Not so much.

Finally, I finished day 2 and pondered the dare. Since I started feeling yucky, I kept it simple. I rubbed some pain stuff on his shoulder (twice) taking the time to massage it a little. I also checked on him a couple of times and made sure that HE decided our plans for Tuesday night, NOT me.

I’m almost afraid to see what day 3 will bring. Nah - not really. This is like a fun adventure because my hubby has no idea I’m doing The Love Dare. I wonder if he will catch on before the 40 days are up.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

little while ago, I took my hubby to see the movie Fireproof. It was awesome. The acting was decent, but the message was incredible. It hit my heart like The Notebook and P.S. I Love You did, stirring up a longing to go even deeper with and draw still closer to my man.

About a week ago, a friend mentioned doing The Love Dare Challenge from Family Life. I signed up for the emails (they started on the 5th), but I knew it wasn’t enough. I wanted the whole Love Dare experience. Off I went to my local Walmart where I can usually find NOT MUCH on my list. Seriously, it’s become a joke whenever I go shopping - Walmart - the can’t find it store.

I prayed on my way to the book section, “Please, Lord, let them have it here. I really want to do this challenge. Now.”

I walked up to the inspirational section and…NADDA. No The Love Dare in sight. Undaunted, I scanned the Best Sellers section as I headed off to other shopping and there, a glimpse of brown behind an audio book rack, down on a low shelf (good thing I’m short, we shorties scan low hehe). I squealed as I snatched up the ONE LONE copy. YES! I thanked the Lord and headed off to finish shopping with my prize.

I’d read the email for day 1 (great stuff by the way) and had purposed to take up the dare for the day. No problem, I thought, I pretty much do this anyway. Would you like some pride to go with that challenge? Anyone happen to know what the Bible says about pride? Yup, I fell a short time later.

We had two other couples over for a bible study and were chit chatting about houses. My man mentioned the possibility of buying land and building. I made a sly comment about not surviving procrastination on a whole house. Our group tends to give each other a hard time and laugh together a lot, so this was par for the course.

Later that night, that comment came back to nag at me, and I realized I’d bombed the first dare. Ouch. My honey does procrastinate on projects (he’s actually a hard worker and his job keeps him hopping), and at times, this really bugs me. So there was some ‘truth’ in the comment. A comment best kept to myself.

I’m determined to do better at this whole dare thing.

By the way, Fireproof comes out this month on DVD. Check it out and if you can handle it, take on The Love Dare. I’d love to hear about your journey with it.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

e’ve waged war on the goat heads in our backyard for years. If you don’t know what a goat head is, please click here. You have to see them in order to appreciate the damage done. Seriously, I’ll wait.

Glad to have you back. Anyway, the battle has been fierce. We eradicate the invaders only to have them conquer more land. They have defeated us time and time again, but never did they draw blood. Until now. This isn’t for the squeamish. (You’ll want to click on the pictures to see better.)

The trail of blood begins here…

You can see a couple of the goat heads laying on the ground, too.

Leads up the front step…

And ends at the door…

Most of the blood was on Koala Bear’s hand as well as Artistic Flare’s hand which she had cupped underneath.

LadyBug held Koala as Artistic plucked the enemy from her hands and knee. Then they helped her inside where I was scrubbing dirt from my hands (I was moving plants to new pots), so my hands were clean enough to help her.

We ran warm water over her hands and then I squirted a little bit of hand soap and told her to rub her hands together under the water as fast as she could. She was more than happy to comply. Ahem.

I then dumped peroxide over her hands. LadyBug helped Koala out of her jeans into some shorts and then Artistic dumped peroxide over her knee. Meanwhile, I turned to google to make sure there wasn’t anything else needing to be done. The main thing is to make sure they don’t get infected.

Then I grabbed the camera to uh assess the damage through the zoom lens.

Notice the thorn still buried in there? She wants her daddy to get it out when he gets home. Should I warn him about the blood drops that will greet him? Nah.

Her hands are a pretty shade of blotchy red and white with a dash of puffy holiness added in.

But her recovery smile is wonderful! Take that goat heads! You can’t keep a great warrior down.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

up - I missed TWO days. But my friend is encouraging me to still participate with as many posts as I can this month. So I will. Because I - as a homeschooling mama of six kiddos with two dogs and four cats under foot who happened to have found out recently that I and two kids (so far) have some mega food allergies, and who also happened to have started a new scrapping and stamping business plus trying to get my etsy store open while feeling Christmas and birthdays and life breathing down my neck - well because I have plenty of time to blog right now. So, yes, I will continue. hehehehe

For those still in the running - YOU CAN DO IT! Keep posting!

(1 votes, average: 1 out of 1)

 Loading ...

o I’m sitting here at my computer when my little guy (5) came staggering out with that just woke up from my nap look. So cute. Wild Dude always comes over to give me a long hug when he first wakes up. So I got my hug and a kiss and he moseyed on out.

A few minutes later, my daughter (2) decided to wake up from her nap. Little Miss Princess decided she wanted to play with her doll house people. Ladybug (16) told her to be quiet and not wake her brother. I told her no worries, he was already awake. LadyBug went back to the room to get the toys and there was Wild Dude - out cold in bed.

Apparently, he had some sleep walking/hugging/kissing going on. Crazy.

A few minutes later, I looked over at Little Miss Princess who had a hat several sizes too small sitting atop her head. She looked like the Pope as she read her books out loud. Soooo cute. Then she ate some nuts that she-ahem-helped herself to before LadyBug told her to go lay down so she could change her.

Ladybug got the supplies, went to find Little Miss Princess and found her in bed, dozing. Can we say WEIRD nap day?

I have one more kid funny. Dude Jr. (9) and Koala Bear (12) were looking in an I Spy book. Koala Bear told him to look for a chick. Dude Jr. points to a girl doll. Yup-he found a chick alright lol.

Being home with my kids is far from boring.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

ep - I almost forgot to post! It’s been a weird day with lots of family meeting type time. But things should run a little smoother around here. We’ve been off of schedule, out of routines and boy are we all noticing it. Phew.

Last night, I played the Wii for the first time. FUN! LOL. The grandparents (hubby’s) bought the family a Wii and some games. After playing one of the Mario games, I’m ready for more.

Oh and tonight, we watched the old Journey to the Center of the Earth. I like to watch the older versions before the newer version. It’s fun to see how ‘dramatic’ they are back then. We enjoyed it and now we’re looking forward to the new one.

Now it’s time for survivor, so I’ll stop rambling. Hopefully tomorrow’s post will be a little more interesting lol. I’m too tired to be witty tonight.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

o today is the first day of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and I thought it would be a great way to kick off my blog writing again. It amazes me how time slips away and before we know it, it’s been about five months since a person has last posted.

I’ve probably been the sickest this year than I have ever been. I have been struggling with sinus issues, fluid in my ears, no energy, etc. I, for the most part, ignored it because nothing seemed to be helping. But then I reached that point. You know that point where you’ve had enough?

So I called and made an appointment with a naturopath. She’s put me on some stuff. One particular item is this liquid that looks and smells like dirt water with weeds dissolved in it. It makes me gag. BAD.

But that isn’t as bad as the torture that happens twice a week. The B shots. In. My. Bum. My hubby has the fun of that one. I won’t mention the comments that come up.

Anyway, we still seemed to be missing something. And then came the blood draw. Turns out I have some food allergies. I wasn’t surprised, but I was definitely taken aback by how many and what some of them were: dairy, casein, goat’s milk, eggs, garlic, beef, gluten, wheat, kidney beans, and squash.I also can’t have yeast or sugar. Or anything that breaks down into a sugar. I ask you, what am I supposed to eat? hehe

My daughter has some food allergies, too. My son’s test appears to have gone missing. I’m sure he will be thrilled to get more blood taken. I’ll probably have the other kids done, too.

On one hand, it’s a relief to know because I may finally be able to get my strength and health back. On the other hand: I have NO idea where to begin. Ok, that isn’t entirely true. I’m making a list of what I can eat. Then I will compile a list of the hidden names for things we’re allergic to. Then I will figure out how to replace the things we can’t have like salad dressing, miracle whip, etc.

One step at a time. One day at a time. That’s how I will figure out how to change our diet.

Anyone out there who struggles with food allergies? I’d love to know how you cope.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...