Rewards...

And then sometimes... after a long day of cleaning...
God brings a special reward full of smiles.






I know it's a little blurry, but isn't he just tooooooo cute?!?

Ta - Da!

To understand this post, you'll need to start two posts below and read your way up.

Just in case any of you were curious about my progress - I just now finished. It's 4:50 pm.
I took advantage of my breaks, but they did keep me on track and I'm done - can you hear the roaring crowd behind me?
I didn't do breaks every 15 minutes, well sometimes I did, but it was usually a half an hour to 45 minutes.

As much as I absolutely LOVE this floor, I hate cleaning it. It has little crevices in the stone that you have to scrub add to that my obsession for avoiding any and all wet dog hair, makes this a formidable job to do.

Rosie sheds like there's no tomorrow. We love her dearly, but ugh! Living in Texas I've never seen a real tumbleweed, but balls of fur rolling across the floor are a regular sighting in Austin. :P

I don't know why, but wet dog hair totally grosses me out (unless I'm giving the dog a bath - I'm not totally odd). Whenever I mop, I have to sweep each section three to four times and get out the vacuum just to make sure. Then I block everybody from the area (they might drag some in).

Anyway, it's an event.

I guess I should say I did get more done than just the floor in the five hours. I cleaned the walls and doors.

Have you ever tried those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers?
It looks like I painted the walls! Absolutely awesome.
Alrighty, I'm starting to sound like a commercial.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone.

Progress is slow...

Update on my last post...

Evidently, my theory of not wanting to stop cleaning once I started... has flaws.
I am now at 10 minutes of "me" time.

Bribery...

I'm not above it. I am, however, embarrased to admit that I'm bribing myself right now. That's right, myself.
We've been cleaning for two days to get ready for Thanksgiving. OK, not all 48 hours, but trying to do it at a pace that won't kill us.
This and the fact that Matthew's on vacation (vacation is synonymous with Spring Cleaning around here), but I digress...
I thought going slowly would make me able to stay interested - you know, slow and steady wins the race? But I'm so not buying it.
It's like I'm the mother and a two year old all rolled into one. I just don't wanna do it, but I know I need to.

So, I've now resorted to bribing myself.
I set the timer for 15 minutes so that I can come on here and just goof off. Then I'll set the timer for 15 minutes to work. If I really want to stop working after that (as if), I'll do ten minutes to myself and still 15 for work. Then I'll go down to 5 minutes for me and 15 for the cleaning. As you can see, I've done this before. The good news is that once I begin my task (whatever it is that I'm avoiding) I don't want to stop - I just want to get done. Here's hoping!

Lovely, the timer just went off. I wonder if I should start over since I was blogging the whole time?
No, time to make the donuts...

Sweetness and Truth, all rolled into one...

Logan is a 13 year-old boy who lives on a ranch in a very small town in Nebraska. Logan listens to Christian Radio station 89.3 FM KSBJ which broadcasts from Houston, TX. Logan called the radio station distraught because he had to take down a calf . His words have wisdom beyond his years.

God does have a sense of humor... He gave me boys.

It's been awhile since I've blogged.
Honestly, I've just felt like I have... blogger's block.
Is there such a thing? I don't know, but it sounds appropriate.
I think I'm looking a little too hard for topics.

To find this elusive thing called inspiration, I decided to ask my teen boys for help. Now there's a brilliant idea.
The brief conversation went something like this:

"I need to blog something guys, what should I write about?"

Ben: "Me! You should blog about me."
Ah it's nice to see the modesty we've instilled in our children really shine in moments like this.

Me: "What exactly should I say about you?"

Ben: "I don't know, I broke my arm - you could write about that."


So, here we go...

Ben fractured his wrist and he's a bit of a drama king. (Ben, how'd I do?)


Alright, not really, I just like to tease him. Ben has the beginning stages of osteoporosis (I don't know how it's spelled, so just pretend that's right).
The funny thing is that his breaks/fractures always happen at church. I guess better there than at home. I'd end up with CPS at my door.
This time it happened when he was at a Youth Retreat.
Exactly how did it happen you may ask?
He tried to jump over a tennis net... and missed.

He just got his cast off about two weeks ago and has been wearing a brace. The really gross part... he kept the cast. OK, I totally get that your friends signed it, but yuck!
That thing is... well... yuck... he's such a boy.




There it is. Tell me, does that scream antibacterial cleaner, or what?


Alrighty then.
Broken arm subject - check.


Moving along in my conversation on what to blog about, Alex had a different answer:

Alex: "Write about Brandon and the salsa today!"

This... well... this is almost as gross as the cast.

Today the Dads Group had a breakfast at the church.
I was there getting all of the paperwork together and doing some debriefing/hanging out afterwards (just in case your wondering why I'm at a Dads event).
Long story short, they had breakfast burritos and there was a quart of salsa left.

The next thing I heard were some of the guys saying things like:
"Do it dude!"
"No way! You won't do that!" (That right there clinched the deal.)

The next thing I know, Brandon's standing in the hall drinking the salsa... the whole quart.
Yep! That's my boy. I'm so proud.

Really, he's a great young man.
He'll just have to learn this lesson the hard way... what goes in, must come out.

Switching Gears...

Finishing... anything.

Now there's a true task for me. I have learned something about myself over the years... I'm not a great finisher. I love to start things, get them going, and keep them going, but closure for some reason is difficult for me -- especially when speaking of a task.

Maybe that's one reason I enjoy ministry so much. It's never finished. There's always something new and exciting that God is doing, but there are also things that need to be completed.
I've kind of concluded that this is one reason I even have trouble stopping what I'm working on, even if it's just for one day.

My most difficult day for life is Thursday. It shouldn't be.
I guess I should say it's one of my most difficult and most loved days. Why?
Loved:
I get started on my day early and accomplish a lot.
I get out of the house.
I get to work on things I love.
I get to work with people I love.
I come home and work with my kids.
I get to teach them and enjoy life with them.
What's not to like, right?

I have trouble switching gears. Once I've been at the office and have my mind on all of the things I need/want to do... well, it's just hard to stop.
It's like yelling, "CHARGE!" and then someone saying... "PSYCH! I was kidding."
*Psych - now there's an old word. It was an '80's term that means "NOT!" for you youngins out there. ;)

This is something God's had to work on with me most of my life.
I guess it's a bit different from your typical ADD personality who can thrive on switching gears constantly. I can multitask well, but usually in the same subject or mode.
Example: School - I'm usually working on three subjects at once. Ministry - same thing - three or four tasks at a time, switching back and forth as if coming down a ski slope.

Back to Thursday -- as the day progresses, it gets easier. Once I'm resigned to completely change modes, then I can do it. It's my own stubbornness that makes it harder on myself than it needs to be.

So there it is.
Not particularly funny or interesting, just where I am personally.

In many ways, it comes back to patience. Ugh! Patience again? I feel like that's one of those things that never goes away. God's continuing education plan for me. Patience. I am very much a person of convenience. If it's convenient for me to work on something right now, I want to do it.

Alright, as I said at the top of this post, I have trouble finishing things and now I'm finding myself rambling and hitting the backspace button more times than I'm actually completing a sentence.

Life is Precious, Life is Sweet...

This has to be one of the most touching articles I've read in a long time.
Totally an amazing miracle!
Twinseperable!