Props to Kevin

My sweet husband appears to be growing up. Today he managed to sell our 11-year-old Mazda and buy a 2006 Nissan Altima without 1) losing his temper; 2) haggling unnecessarily with the salesman; and 3) making the car dealership people angry, too. Not that he was throwing money away, because he made sure he got a good deal. But when he bought the Mazda 11 years ago, he spent EIGHT hours at the dealership trying to eke out the last possible penny. Today's adventure was over in just a few hours. (And as an added bonus, David got a balloon. And Kevin got the spoiler.) The dealership still did the whole cheesy "let me take this figure to my manager" trick, but Kevin withstood all the tactics. I'll miss the little Mazda 626 -- Kevin bought it just before we got married and it was my first new car. Godspeed, 626, you served us well.

And on a completely different note, we are supposed to leave for Houston in the morning for Thanksgiving with the grandparents, but 66.67 percent of our children are sick. David is on the mend, we think, but Caelyn is a weepy mess with a sore throat, throbbing head, and continually runny nose. At least it's not an urpy sickness this time. I'm not sure Kevin's mom has forgiven us for bringing and sharing the horrible stomach virus last summer. I know her carpet never fully recovered.

Look Like Dirt = Run Into People You Know

This is my last week of weight training with my friends Kathleen and Amy (Kathleen's the personal trainer/torture expert; Amy's the other willing participant in this quest for muscle mass). Kathleen was particularly demanding today, but in a nice way. At any rate, I left her house a little sweaty, probably a little smelly, and with a bad case of gym hair.

So I drove to the HEB on Blanco and 1604 because it's not my regular store and I figured I could shop anonymously. Wrong. I immediately ran into Diana Lowe, one of the pastors' wives from church. Five minutes later I'm at the deli counter waiting for my mesquite smoked turkey when I recognize the woman standing beside me. It's JoAnn MacPherson, one of my former students from when I taught high school journalism. She's married and a full-fledged grown-up, so now I feel sweaty, smelly, unattractive, and OLD. Still, it was fun to see her.

I go home and spend the next couple hours frantically cooking dinner for Kathleen, Amy, and my family. Making minestrone while wearing a white shirt was not a brilliant idea, so I got noticeably splattered with beef broth and tomatoes. Now I'm sweaty, smelly, unattractive, OLD and a slob, so what happens after school? I run into one of my impeccably groomed friends when I take the kids to Shipley's.

It's almost 7:30 at night and I still haven't showered. And really, what's the point now? Kevin's a little stuffy so he won't notice if I'm not too rosy, and I can sleep in my dirty clothes and save the clean jammies for another night. And bad hair at night? Who cares?

But I can guarantee that tomorrow I'll look (and smell) good and I won't run into anybody I know. Vanity's funny that way.

Coming Up To Breathe

The last two months have been hectic, crazy, over-worked, etc. Thankfully, I've finished a big editing job and I'm taking a few weeks off from curriculum writing, which means I'm enjoying a few hours of freedom each day. Time to clean the house, tackle some serious clutter, deal with a mountain of laundry, cook a decent meal, hit the gym, sew an Indian costume for Caelyn for Thanksgiving Feast... OK, maybe I don't have that much free time after all. But I don't feel like I'm in a constant state of stress right now, and that's a great feeling.

So here's what I got to do this weekend. I sat in my car from 6-10 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday nights counting the number of customers who entered a particular store. Seriously, I got paid to sit in my car and make a tally. It was glorious! Eight hours of magazine reading, Bible study, logic puzzles, and spontaneous praise singing. Eight hours without a single person demanding a single thing from me. Eight hours of peace with a side of quiet. I didn't even turn on my radio because I wanted to enjoy the silence. My backside got a little sore, but it was well worth it.

And now I have an Indian costume to sew.

Apparently I Don't Exist

I always knew I was unique, but this is ridiculous! Thanks to Megan for the laugh.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I Need a Nap

It's 8:48 in the morning, and I've been up since 12:46 a.m. I had a migraine last night so I went to bed early and fell asleep before 9. I woke up in the middle of the night and took more Excedrin, and then I couldn't sleep so I watched Lost on Tivo. Finally stumbled back to bed after 1:30, but then I kept hearing noises (thought it was the cat). After 20 minutes of restlessness, I realized the kitchen light was on. A quick investigation revealed that my son, who is almost 3, was wandering around the house. Returned him to his room only to discover that he'd thrown up in his bed. Seven hours later, and I still haven't slept. I've done three loads of laundry and have a day's worth more. Poor David is lying pathetically on the living room floor because I don't want him to christen the couches with urp. (I'd put him in bed, but both sets of sheets are in the wash. Besides, and it's a TV-watching kind of day.) I'm off to search the garage for the Little Green Machine so I can clean up the carpet.

Here's hoping this is short-lived and that the girls don't get it. Kendra's 7th birthday party is in 49 hours, and I'd hate for her to miss out on her celebration.

Please Pray for My Dad

If you're a praying person, please consider praying for my Dad. He's had a long history of illness, strokes, and increased disability. As a result, he's become severely depressed. He's currently in the hospital and hopefully will receive proper treatment. He's also in the process of selling his house and moving back into the retirement community where he was last year, so pray that he'll adjust and accept his new situation better than he did last time. Also, pray that I'll have the right words to offer him. He's lost hope.

Opening Day

Yup, it's official. Today was opening day -- for catalog season. I found half a dozen catalogs in my mailbox today, and I know from experience that the number will only increase as we inch closer to Christmas. Normally I just toss them into the recycling bin, but this year I think I'm going to take the effort and actually call the companies and request to be taken off their mailing lists. It won't make much difference, I know, but I hate to see all that glossy paper wasted.

I like giving and receiving presents, by the way. Generally, I like stuff. I just don't need to see examples of every single thing that I could spend money on. And I certainly don't want companies to waste time, paper, and money sending shiny catalogs to me when 99 times out of 100 I won't even look at them. And I really like my mail carrier, so I'm hoping my efforts will lighten her load, too. At least for my mailbox; I'm sure her truck is filled with catalogs headed toward the neighbors' houses. Sigh.

******
UPDATE: One hour later, and I've called a few companies. One company happily took me off their list and said they appreciated the feedback. The second company could not find me in their system, even though I had the catalog in hand with my correctly spelled name and the customer ID number. I guess I'll just pitch those catalogs when they arrive on a semi-weekly basis.

Yippee!

I love Target. It's the happiest place on earth for me. And today God has blessed me with a $100 gift certificate to Target!

The education program at Trinity University (my alma mater) is celebrating its 15th anniversary of the master's program. They sent out surveys to all the MAT graduates asking for current information and career stories. As an incentive, they said they would have a drawing for two $100 gift certificates to either Barnes & Noble or Target. Today the education department sent out an email saying that I was one of the winners -- yippee!

On top of that, I scored two mystery shops this month at Target. I get reimbursed for $50 for each shop. That's $200 of Target money this month! Now is the real test: Do I use the freebie money for something practical for the house, or for birthday gifts for Kevin and the kids, or for something extravagant for me?

"Sir, you are a saint."

That's what I wanted to say to a certain man last week. I was in the public library when I noticed an elderly couple sitting at a table. The husband was quietly working on financial paperwork, and the wife was reading the newspaper. I don't know what happened previously, but the wife was verbally berating her husband as if he were a child. She told his how horrible his manners were and how awful a husband he was. After a few minutes she returned to her newspaper. Soon she asked, "What is a nemesis? I don't know that word." Her husband answered, "An unlikable enemy," which I thought was a decent answer. The wife lit into him again about how stupid his response was, how he shouldn't add a word like "unlikable" if it really just means "enemy." (I know, the irony...) Later the husband politely asked, "May I please have 50 cents?" to which the wife responded, "No, because you don't know how to ask a question properly. You should have asked, 'May I have two quarters?' because I don't know if you need 5 dimes or what." She proceeded to call him a swear word rather unbecoming for a lady, especially one in her 70s.

So I'm listening to all this, wishing I could say something to her. I wanted to chew her out. I wanted to heap burning coals on her head by being kind. I wanted to tell her poor, defeated husband that he is a true saint and a model of patience. I wanted to tell her husband to get a backbone and fight back. In the end, I paused for a few moments and prayed for the both of them. And then I prayed for myself, that I would never act like that. Surely this is the woman that Solomon was thinking about when he wrote "a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping."

I Can't Move Today

Actually, I can move. I'm just moving very slowly. With pain. Lots of pain.

Yesterday my friend Amy and I tried a new class at the gym. It's called STRONG, and now I know why it was written in all caps on the class rosters.

Basically, it was a series of weight training exercises. I've never used a dumbbell in my life, but I figured out how to add the weights and lock the cap thingie on the end.

I was doing OK with the shoulder squats and reverse flies. But somewhere around the second set of skull crushers (don't ask), my triceps gave out. I barely made it through the lumberjack chopping movement. And then the sadistic instructor put us through 5 minutes of ab work.

The hour went by quickly, and after class Amy and I were smiling and said it was the best class we'd taken so far. Then Amy called me late last night and asked, "How much are you hurting right now?" Not as much as I'm hurting right now, I tell you.

Strangely enough, we've agreed to go back to the class next week, too. I'll just load up on Advil first.

Sometimes I Feel Like This...

"So much of me believes strongly in letting everybody live their own lives, and when I share my faith, I feel like a network marketing guy trying to build my downline." -- Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz

It's sad, but true. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to sell Christ to people, as if He were a set of Ginsu knives. It's not that I don't believe in God, or in salvation, or in the Bible. Because I do, wholeheartedly. But sometimes you encounter somebody who obviously doesn't know God, and when you start talking about Him they get that glazed-over look in their eyes, as if they're thinking, "How long do I have to listen to this pitch before I can hang up?" I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, but I don't want to be a nudgy vendor woman, either.

5 Things

I was tagged by my buddy Megan to do this...

5 Things in My Freezer:
a stack of gallon-sized bags of spaghetti sauce (I just cooked in bulk);
some raspberry chocolate chips that I don't know what do to with;
three mini loaves of zucchini bread;
three pounds of butter, mostly unsalted;
way too much ice cream

5 Things in My Closet:
a huge stack of ill-fitting or outdated clothes that I need to donate or sell on Ebay;
the girls' old crib bedding;
a set of construction Legos for David's Christmas present;
my graduation caps and gowns;
several clumps of cat fur

5 Things in My Car:
a pile of trail mix nuts that the kids didn't eat (they devoured the raisins and M&Ms, though);
a pile of well-worn Chick-fil-A books;
some Windex Wipes so I can clean the grubby fingerprints off the windows during carpool;
a thin layer of Kevin's whiskers, since he shaves on the way to church;
a yoga mat

5 Things in My Purse/Wallet:
my new driver's license with a photo that does NOT have huge bangs;
a lipstick that's been melted a few too many times in the Texas sun;
three singles and a dime;
a coupon holder dedicated to grocery store items;
a coupon holder mostly dedicated to Chick-fil-A, but also to bowling alleys, dry cleaning, and other local eateries

5 Things Most People Don't Know About Me:
I wish I could sing well enough to try out for American Idol;
I want to be a drummer in heaven's alternative Christian rock band;
I do impersonations of people I know (Kevin really likes this fact about me. He's pretty much the only person who sees me in action);
every aptitude test I ever took said I was supposed to be an engineer -- my math SATs were 200 points above my verbal SATs -- yet I became a writer anyway;
I danced in the halftime show at Super Bowl XXI

5 Books I've Recommended in the Last Few Years:
Blue Genes by Paul Meier (it's helped me understand my struggles with depression);
The Ishbane Conspiracy by Randy Alcorn;
Heaven by Randy Alcorn;
Looking for God in Harry Potter by John Granger;
Created to Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl

5 Books I've Bought But Haven't Read Yet:
The Cross Examination of Jesus Christ by Randy Singer
The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
Candle in the Darkness by Lynn Austin

5 Things I Should Be Doing Instead of Blogging Right Now:
finishing up the laundry;
packing for our trip;
boxing up the stuff I just sold on eBay;
writing a reading passage for my job;
dealing with the disaster zone upstairs

5 People I Tag to Do This:
the Kwans
Stephanie
Paul
Amy
anyone else? Let me know so I can read 'em.

The Good and the Bad

This has been an utterly crazy week!

The Good:
I finally got to ride the Great White rollercoaster at Sea World. Kevin's parents were in town, so we all went for the day. We were able to leave the kids with Grandma and Grandpa for half an hour so we could get our adrenaline rush. Totally fun ride until...
The Bad:
The brake system was a little faulty at the end. Instead of coasting to a stop, we slammed short and Kevin's neck hurt for a while. Not a good memory for Kevin since he's already a bit squeamish about rollercoasters.

The Good:
We bought David's "big boy bed." He slept in it for the first time last night and did really well, although he was sleeping sideways when I checked on him this morning.
The Bad:
Buying a mattress is pretty much the same experience as buying a car. The salesman actually took a $100 bill out of his wallet, laid in on the table, placed a sample of "protectant" on the bill, and then poured colored liquid onto the bill. All this was just to prove his point that we needed to spend another $75 for a protective sealer, which I could do myself with a $4 can of Scotch Guard.

The Good:
Now that David's in his big boy bed, we can finally switch the kids' bedrooms around upstairs. The girls needed to move across the way so they could have the dual bathroom.
The Bad:
Kevin decided to start moving the kids' furniture at 7:30 last night. Which means the kids didn't get to sleep until after 9:30. Which means I'm anticipating a meltdown later today. Thankfully, we have a copy of "Chicken Little" from the library and they can zone out when they start to get cranky.

The Good:
I have been gainfully employed the last two weeks. I've gotten several decent mystery shops and got to take Kevin on a date to Outback. I also had to do a shop at Rolling Oaks Mall for a kids' event, and Kendra won a Cabbage Patch baby. Actually, she won a personal video disc player (not the same as a DVD player), but we traded with a 9-year-old boy who won the Cabbage Patch. Both kids were pretty darn happy with that trade. Americans should barter more -- it's fun.
The Bad:
Working is good, but not when it all comes at once. In addition to all the mystery shops, I'm also scrambling trying to finish the six reading passages that I need to write for my other job. It's been a little stressful and I'm not getting enough sleep.

We're leaving on vacation to California on Wednesday. Pray for peaceful flights and flexible children!

Kid Quote Contest

This is for Alex, the Amys, Megan, Stephanie, my sisters, and all my other mom friends whose kids say the funniest things. Write down what they say, and submit the funniest and/or most poignant ones to this contest. The winning quotes are made into adorable greeting cards. Your child gets a little cash and a lot of recognition!

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.

When my Granddad died, my father sold his box seats at Dodger Stadium. My father had four daughters, and he probably thought his girls wouldn't be able to appreciate the joys of baseball. He was wrong.

Sometime in the early-80s, my dad and I started going to Dodger games together. Our family life was unstable, but my dad and I found that we could have some semblance of a relationship by sharing baseball. On warm summer nights he'd come home from work, pick me up, and we'd make the short drive to Dodger Stadium. I loved driving the last stretch up the hill, where a sheer cliff flanked the right side of the road. Maybe my excitement was partially fear of a rockslide, but I did love the drive.

When we got to the Stadium, we'd get a couple of Dodger Dogs before finding our seats. (Dodger Dogs are the only hot dogs worth eating, by the way.) I'd get a Diet Coke, my dad would get a beer, and we'd take our seats, which were usually along the first baseline. The sun was always blinding, at first, but eventually the sun would dip behind the scoreboard and the round, orange Union 76 gasoline sign that stood on top. From that vantage we would watch the game and catch glimpses of the celebrities who were in attendance that day.

My dad taught me how to read the box scores. I learned all the terminology. I listened to the legendary Vin Scully announce the games. I ate Cracker Jack and ice cream and joyfully sang during the seventh inning stretch. I became a huge fan of Steve Sax, Orel Herschiser, and even Fernando Valenzuela. Mostly, though, I learned how to sit still during the very long stretches where nothing seemed to happen. I learned to appreciate the steady, slow rhythms of baseball. And occasionally, my dad and I would have a good conversation about something other than the game itself.

One of my clearest father/daughter childhood memories was in 1988. My parents were on the verge of divorce, and my mom and I had already moved into an apartment. I was a senior in high school and acted like my dad barely existed. He reached out, though, and invited me to Game 1 of the World Series against the Oakland A's. We had incredible seats between homeplate and first base. We were four rows behind Kareem Abdul Jabbar. The governor was there. The whole stadium was buzzing with excitement, yet my father and I barely spoke during the game. There was an enormous, unspoken tension between us that baseball could not heal. By the ninth inning I couldn't wait to go home.

But then an ailing Kirk Gibson emerged from the dugout, took the plate, and made an amazing, miraculous three-run homer that brought the Dodgers from behind and gave us the win. I remember watching the crowd go nuts and seeing my dad's face. He was happy for the win, but his face showed the strain of our broken family and fractured relationship. It remained one of the many unspoken moments between us, but I think I understood a bit more about my dad that night. He had screwed up our family, but he was aware of his mistakes. He didn't know how to express it, but I think he was sorry about his inability to fix things. I probably didn't express enough appreciation at the time, but I was honored that my dad chose to invite me to the game as opposed to any of his friends.

My dad lives alone now, and I only see him once a year. When I visited him last summer, he enormous television was showing a Dodger game. The screen looked off-color, though, and after a few minutes I realized that Steve Garvey was playing. My dad was watching a replay of an old Dodgers game on ESPN Classic. I don't understand why he'd want to watch a game from 30 years ago, but maybe he was trying to come to terms with his own life, too. Baseball just happens to be his medium.

And now, for sheer love of the game, here's a link to my favorite speech from one of my favorite movies, Field of Dreams. James Earl Jones could never have given this speech about any other sport.

Caelyn's Latest Word Picture

Five-year-old Caelyn had a stomach ache this morning. "It's like there's a scorpion inside my tummy that's pinching me." She's a little wordsmith, she is. I'll bet she becomes a writer.

Stuff on My Cat

The kids and I have discovered a hilarious website: www.stuffonmycat.com
The basic premise is that cats are even better when you stack stuff on them. Every morning we check out the new photos and giggle.
We're so entertained by the pictures that we've started dressing up our own cat. Poor Zelda has been extremely tolerant, and here's our favorite shot so far.

Favorite Kid Quotes of Late

My kids are always cracking me up with their clever language usages, but I think Caelyn is the most creative. Here are some of her latest quotes:

"Sometimes I'm just melting with happiness!"

"When I get sick, it's like there's a volcano in my tummy that comes out my mouth." (Now there's a vivid picture.)

Then again, Kendra asks the most profound questions, such as:

"Can presidents come back to life?" and

"Why didn't God make all our fingers the same size?" and

"Can a shark's head come up through the toilet and bite me?"

Recent Escapades, Part Three -- SAPD Not Involved

In yet another blip on my screen of bad luck, our mailbox was demolished by a runaway truck last week. A neighbor is building a pool, and the excavators forgot to set the brake. The truck rolled down the street and smashed into our front yard, taking out both our and our neighbor's mailboxes. Thankfully, the kids weren't outside playing. Also thankfully, the excavators have already written a check to fully pay for the replacement mailboxes, which cost over $500 a piece. Until then, I have to drive to the local post office to pick up our mail.

Recent Escapades with the SAPD -- Part Two

Remember the huge garage project I did to surprise Kevin? (He really, really liked it, by the way.) While the paint was drying, I had to park my minivan in the driveway. And here's what happened:

On the Saturday after VBS, I went out for some much-needed alone time. I went shopping, and while I was in Rack Room Shoes (the scene of David's escape; see previous post), I found a super-cheap and fairly cute black purse. I bought it and immediately switched my wallet and cell phone into the new black purse since I was wearing black pants and shoes.

When I came home that night, I brought my old brown purse into the house out of habit. I didn't really think about bringing in the new black purse. Big mistake.

The next morning I went outside with the kids to load up for church. Right away, I noticed that the passenger's window was shattered. I went inside, told Kevin, and asked what would have caused the window to break. Sometimes I'm just so stinking naive, but Kevin once broke a window just from the vibration of his lawnmower, and he did mow the lawn on Saturday, so my thoughts were on that path.

Suddenly it dawned on me that this was an act of vandalism, and that I didn't know where that black purse was. I did a quick search of the house and confirmed that, yes, we'd been robbed.

It only took 90 minutes to call the police and file a report, and then call all the credit card companies to cancel the cards. Several informed me that they had already red-flagged my card since they had noticed unusual activity on the cards. I haven't seen all the statements yet, but it looks like the thieves had a good ole time buying beer at gas stations and getting some electronic equipment at Walmart.

Later that week, the SAPD called me to say they had "recovered" my wallet at the Valero down the street from my house. I went to the police station to pick it up, and some of my cards were still in there. My driver's license is MIA, so some hoodlum is probably using it to get into bars. There were also some credit cards that didn't belong to me in my wallent. Some poor bloke named Steven B. Harwood also got burglarized, I guess, by the same guys. But, at least I got my Costco card back and a few other things. All the cash was gone, but the thieves didn't take my coins. I suppose they aren't interested in small change when they were busy racking up hundreds of dollars of fraudulent purchases.

And here's a tip: The DPS office in New Braunfels is not any faster than the location on Perrin Beitel. I waited an hour with three kids to get a replacement license, and the New Braunfels office didn't have any chairs to sit on. Can't wait to see that new license photo, considering I was rather frazzled and David was pulling on my shorts.