Y'all don't forget to enter giveaway for a SmartyAnts Phonics Learning Pup, a one year subscription to the SmartyAnts website, AND a $100 VISA gift card here!  

Checking myself into rehab

My senior year of college, I gave up computer Solitaire for Lent.

I know. GeeksRUs, right? But what happened was, I was very overwhelmed by several upper division English classes, and instead of studying like I was supposed to, I played Solitaire on my wee little Mac. Over. And over. And over.

Thank goodness I didn't have the Internet in college. Yes, children, we got through 4+ years of college with no internet. To write a term paper, we actually went to the library and checked out books, real books. And if the book we needed was already checked out, we considered bribing the librarian for the name of the person who had it and breaking into their apartment and stealing it. But basically we were just up a creek without a resource.

Anyway, my point is, I have a little bit of an addictive personality. I learned during my computer Solitaire withdrawals that I would perhaps make a very addicted gambler, if only I weren't so cheap a paragon of frugality. The one and only time I ever went in a casino, in Tahoe, I lost $10 and it just about ruined my night. I am definitely not Vegas's targeted consumer.

Back to my point.

Due to a variety of reasons, life around the Naptime house has gotten even more overwhelming than usual lately. After all these years of mothering my pride (as in a pride of lions, wild, fierce, clawing, sometimes biting little lions) one might think I would be used to an eternally messy house and only getting a project halfway completed before someone fulfilled his urge to pour an entire box of grits all over the floor. Alas, one would be mistaken. It still causes me regular anxiety.

Throw in things like, oh, a stomach virus followed by a week out of town followed by CHRISTMAS AND ALL THAT ENTAILS and I am just jonesing for four aces lined up across a screen!! Jonesing! Be good to Momma, invisible inanimate card dealer!!

I look around and I see disaster and I don't know where to start. Some might pour themselves a stiff drink. Some might pop pills. Some (nerd) might play computer Solitaire.

But not I.

Hi, my name is Missy, and I'm an Internet popper.

I plop down in front of this here contraption and get sucked in while lunches go unmade and mantels undecorated and bible studies undone and Christmas cards unaddressed and laundry unfolded. Which further compounds the problem. It is a vicious, vicious cycle.

This morning during my recently regular prayer time of, God, I know you're there, why can't I seem to connect with you? the idea of a fast 'came' to me. To which I replied, fast? But I was gonna go to the gym today? To which he replied Not that kind of fast.

Food is not my problem.

I need an Internet fast.

Namely, the stupidest, most time-sucking, vapid parts of the Internet, like Twitter. And facebook. And endless Wikipedia rabbit trails. And Bravo.net.

I'm checking myself into the Betty Bored Clinic.

The fact that I feel relief and excitement about this says something, doesn't it? I've become a little (lot?) enslaved to the web. My sisters, this is not good.

So, for this Advent, I will be a less visible. I can't completely de-internet, as bills still must be paid and Christmas photos ordered. This blog is not the problem lately, so if I get the urge to blog I will. I have written some good Christmas posts in the past which I will be rerunning (without the guilt I usually feel when I post a rerun) (see, blog guilt? that's messed up). Hopefully I will come up with a couple of new posts, and I have some giveaway commitments to fulfill.

But if you know me and need to reach me, please text, or maybe we could even go old-school and talk on the phone! Just like in college! If you absolutely don't need to email me, please don't.

And if you wanna join me in the Advent Fast, hey. Come on board.

Have a wonderful, peaceful Advent.

Eight years today

During our engagement, I couldn't wait to have him by my side every night. I imagined our bodies gracefully intertwined, holding each other tightly yet comfortably as we slept deeply all night long. Above our brand new ivory colored 600 thread count sheets my tanned arms would show a peek of one of the many beautiful pieces of lingerie my girlfriends had bestowed upon me at my bachelorette party. Probably on the 23rd of every month I would wear my demure yet irresistible white wedding night nightie to celebrate yet one more month of conjugal bliss.

We were married November 23. During our honeymoon and the 33 nights to follow, I took joy in selecting each night's silky nightie. It was all I dreamed it would be, and more.

On December 26, I decided that before I drugged myself into oblivion with Theraflu to combat my nausea and headache, I had better take a test on the off chance that those negligees - probably the leopard print one - had led to a pregnancy.

My little bout with the flu will be seven years old this August.

With gestation came instant insomnia. Suddenly the previously cozy double bed we shared was an homage to my nightly misery. I tossed and turned, begging God to give me some sleep before I was asked to teach second graders the next day.

At bedtime, we would lie as spoons while his big hand cradled my womb. For about two minutes. Until the torture from the coarse hairs on his chest poking and scratching the skin on my back and the ridiculously heavy weight of his arm caused me to roll away - as far away as I could get in our shrinking double bed.

After the thirty seconds had passed that it took him to fall asleep - a skill that made me incredibly envious - the snoring began. First I would shudder hard enough that the bed would shake a bit. A pause...I'd lie in hope. Then a nudge. Nudge harder. Kick his leg. Kick his leg harder. Shove his shoulder and whisper accusingly ROLL OVER! You're SNORING!! In his half sleep, he always managed to give me a dirty look before complying. Until he snored again.

And once, I was startled awake in the middle of the night by a piercing noise. My heart racing, I feared I had heard a gunshot. There was no gun. There was only my husband. Still sleeping as his "gunshot" filled the air.

The many silky negligees slept on rose scented drawer liners as my previously flat tummy grew, and grew, and grew. But his soft white undershirts with the yellow pit stains were oh so comfortable over my maternity underwear.

In March we moved to a new home. Before we moved, we went shopping for our new marriage bed. The biggest bed you have, please. King size. So we can pretend our beloved is not even there, thank you.

The baby was born. And then another, and another, and another. I had sworn no child would ever sleep in our marriage bed. Four newborns have slept in our marriage bed. As have four sick, napping, segregated, or scared-of-thunderstorms children.

Last week my groom and I made our king sized bed and burst out laughing at the huge red postpartum stain, at the stubborn remnants of a coffee spill, at the two year old's ballpoint pen artistry on our old ivory colored 600 thread count sheets.

This morning I lay in bed with him while the white noise machine hummed in the background. I wore a demure yet irresistible neon orange VBS t-shirt with a bleach stain on the front and underwear my mom bought me at the dollar store. The effects of four pregnancies means I sleep on a heating pad, barricaded by a pillow between my legs and a pillow to support my ever aching back. I wear earplugs now to block the snores. He rolled over, the face I know so well now toward me. I expertly arranged another pillow to block the flow of his morning breath.

He reached out blindly, found my hand, and placed his own over mine, then gently yet firmly squeezed my fingers as the new morning dawned and eight little feet began to scurry round our marriage bed.

I squeezed back. And thanked God for giving me more than I ever dreamed of.

Oh, don't think I'm blogging.

Oh no. I'm shamelessly copying my own self once more because I seem to have developed a blog disability. Tomorrow I am headed down to see if there is an government assistance available to me. I'll keep you posted.

Till then, I found this from last year and it seems timely because my goal today all day has been to get Christmas decorations up. Yet i was stymied by the sight of some grunge underneath the shoe mold in my family room. Once that was discovered, it took three count 'em three Oprahs, a dinner knife, and a whole lot of baby wipes, but my shoe mold is grimefree, y'all.

And my house is yet unChristmasfied.

But the night is young. I will have me some Christmas up before I go to bed tonight!! With the Heat Miser as my witness, I shall!!


2009 Version of all you ever wanted to know about how we celebrate Christmas*

** but didn't care enough to ask

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? coffee with Peppermint Mocha Coffee Mate. I wait all year for my Peppermint Mocha to return, and when it does, I turn cartwheels in the Kroger dairy aisle. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but I do bust a little move. And when Christmas is past I stock up to keep the Christmas spirit alive till Valentine's. That chemicalled up Coffee Mate lasts a long long time past it's expiration - which is pretty scary, yet deliciously glorious.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa is a fat lazy man. Unwrapped. Santa is dreaming of wrapping presents this year, but Santa often has trouble getting beyond his fat lazy tendencies. The road to the North Pole is paved with good intentions, yada yada.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? white. But fat lazy Santa is also seriously considering not putting up lights outside this year. However, Fat Lazy Santa tends to say this every year, and then finds herself - yes, Fat Lazy Santa is a woman or at least has some severe gender identity issues - finds herself outside in the freezing cold the week before Christmas because s/he is overcome by guilt that his/her children will end up in therapy someday, deprived of outdoor Christmas lights. And then FLS leaves the lights up till Easter, because s/he waited so long to put them up, and, well, s/he's fat and lazy.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? I have 2 children born approximately 9 months after Christmas. Ya think?

5. When do you put your decorations up? Girl, they UP. I did it early this year. Which took a little bit of the Lazy out of Fat Lazy.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Frieda's broccoli rice casserole and her cornbread dressing. Major contributor to aforementioned fatness and laziness.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? The outdoor Christmas lights. NOT! There, all my neuroses explained.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I learned that Santa is fat and lazy circa 2003.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Oh, I guess so, if you insist.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? I take an ornament, a put a little hook on it, I hang it on the tree.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Dread it. The blizzards we get here in the Houston suburbs, oh dear. We have to tie a rope from the house to our bodies so we don't get lost going out to the barn to milk the cow.

12. Can you ice skate? Who can say?

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I got a humongous Estee Lauder makeup kit when I was 12. HUGE. Every color of the rainbow of eye shadow. It was glorious. Tammy Faye had NOTHING on me that year. It is also what began my to-this-day love affair with Estee Lauder More Than Mascara.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Oh, I guess if I were really pressed, I would have to say THE BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? see #1

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Not putting up outside Christmas lights.

17. What tops your tree? Um. I should probably know the answer to this.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? Giving. Receiving. Giving. Receiving.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? All Christmas hymns make me cry. ALL OF THEM. Last July I played Joan Jett's Little Drummer Boy and boo hooed. JOAN JETT made me cry. In JULY. The road to menopause paved with tears. Thank goodness for Estee Lauder More Than Mascara.

20. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum? Very good currency for the preschool set. The road to obedience is paved with candy canes.

21 Favorite Christmas Show? Mr. Heat Miser. Although I am sure now that he was some kind of Satanic symbol. Come on, MR. HEAT MISER? Looked like a demon and sought equality with Mr. Snow Miser? Who boy, you could write your dissertation on the symbolic references there.

(Walker just commented that Adam Lambert looked just like Mr. Heat Miser at the AMAs. Which only further supports that theory, eh?)

22. Saddest Christmas Song? Mary Did You Know. And Joan Jett's Little Drummer Boy. And Rudolph, I always felt sorry for Rudolph. Even though supposedly all the reindeer loved him after that one foggy Christmas Eve, I always had a suspicion they were just kissing up until Fat Lazy Santa went back inside.

Feeling fat and lazy? Go ahead, copy this post and fill it out on your blog. See? I'm all about giving. And receiving. And giving. And receiving.

SmartyAnts giveaway

I'm reviewing a new kids' online reading game called SmartyAnts at my giveaway page - pop on over for your chance to win a one year subscription to SmartyAnts and a $100 Visa gift card!

Giveaway winner

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

17 

Timestamp: 2010-11-19 04:14:38 UTC

 g
The winner of the Noonday Collection Tagua Drops necklace is Stephanie!

Congrats Stephanie! I'm sure Stephanie is a very nice girl, because she is a Vandy girl, and I've never met a Vandy girl I didn't like.

Be sure and enter my other giveaway here!

Cell death

This week we have had a tummy virus that keeps on giving.

Sometimes I wonder if God just wants me to slow down, so he sends a little microbe my way to ensure that happens. Personally I'd prefer that if he wants me to slow down he send along an all expenses paid trip to St. Lucia, but he's the boss. Today while the rest of the family was at church, fellow sickie Eva Rose and I laid in bed, cried over Marley and Me, painted toenails, napped, and did lots and lots of snuggling.

It was all very precious. Except for the battle raging fiercely in my innards.

My tummy just hurt. There weren't many other symptoms, for which I was abundantly grateful, just pain. And the phrase that kept running through my head was "cell death". I felt the deaths of my cells. The slow, tortuous, agonizing deaths.

I remembered that I once wrote a post on cell death but I couldn't remember when or why. At one point I hobbled over to this here computer and found it. It was written on Shep's fourth birthday.

Way back when this baby

was this baby:

He was already a big brother to three. What a cutie pie he was.

(He's changed so much, yet my kitchen looks exactly the same.)

Back then I was still kind new at the mom thing and an ever newer blogger. Both the mom in me and the blogger in me have grown. Lots.

But if you won't mind, a walk down sentimental, where did my baby go lane...

August 26, 2007

Four years ago today my world was turned inside out and upside down by this:


He looks innocent enough, right? How could eight and a half pounds cause so much upset? But he did.

I was thinking about this last night, about how hard it was when he was born. I am getting fuzzy on the memories. Ingram is so easy to me now. All he does is eat, sleep, swing, and smile. He is much easier than a 4 year old learning how to lie, a terribly terribly 2 year old, or a 1 year old who is a little tornado. But when Shep was Ingram's age, I was hanging on by a thread.

I know now that it was because I was dying a little bit every day, and while there was an Easter coming, the crucifixion was slow and so painful. I was utterly helplessly in love with this little bitty boy, I wanted to inhale him, he was so delightful and delicious. I was overwhelmed by both gratitude and fear. But the Missy that I had grown used to was disappearing, some days slow, some sleepless nights, very fast, and it was discombobulating to say the least.

Once I asked a doctor friend of mine why it hurts when you have the flu, what actually causes the pain. His reply "cell death" sounded so disgusting to me. But that is what becoming a mother is like, in so many ways. Cell death. And it is more painful than the flu. I had to learn - am still learning - to die to myself, to die to my desires, my spontaneity, my freedom, my illusion that I had any control over anything, let alone another little person. Wow, did my preconceptions regarding "good motherhood" die, always through failure at achieving those very standards. Many parts of my personality needed to be killed, are still in the process of being killed: my selfishness, my temper. The new Missy, the Mom, is still a work in progress, and I get the feeling that this work will go on until my cells experience a literal death.

One thing for certain: I am a much better person since Shepherd, and his subsequent sisters and brother, graced my life. I am much less judgmental, especially of other parents. including my own - and myself. I know now that we are all just making this up as we go along, and praying for the best. I am more loving and realize that every person is some mother's child. I can't watch the news very much anymore, and I have work hard to stave off depression when I hear of a child being hurt or lost.

The greatest blessing is this: I think I know the heart of God better now. By loving my children, I can grasp how deep and wide his love is for me. I understand now how he would die for me, because I would die for either of them without a second thought. Mostly, my faith in God's providence has been strengthened. In the beginning of Shepherd's life, I was frequently paralyzed by fear that something would happen to him. My trust in God was tested in a way it had never even come close to being tested before. And believe me, there have been some scary and dangerous situations - but God has protected them, renewing my faith and calming my fears each time.

Our friends Mark and Jenny tell the story of how their firstborn had to sleep on his tummy once due to a cold. They traded shifts all night long to literally watch him as he slept, so afraid were they that SIDS would steal him in the night. These are the crazy things parents do. I know now that our crazy Heavenly Father stares in the beds of each of my children each night, all night long. He stares at my bed too, and this is the certain knowledge that has made it possible for me to sleep at all for the past four years. I don't have to be the perfect parent. That job is already being filled.

Happy Birthday, sweet Shepherd. What a difference you've made in my life.

Oh my glory it's so pretty GIVEAWAY!

I have a friend named Sabra and Sabra moved to Austin and soon afterwards I started getting facebook messages from Sabra saying, "You have GOT to meet my friend Jessica" so Jessica and I cybermet and facebook friended each other and then I went to the Together for Adoption Conference in October and Jessica was going so I facebook messaged Jessica "Hey are you going?" and Jessica facebook messaged, "Yes! Wanna stay at my house?" and I facebooked Jessica "Absolutely!" and we lived happily ever after.

Sabra was right, Jessica and I stayed up way too late talking on Friday night when we had to get up early the next morning for the second day of the conference we were both praising the Lord for caffeine. She and her husband have two cutie pies and are currently in the process of getting cutie pie #3 from Rwanda. They got their paperwork in LITERALLY at the very last minute before Rwanda closed down adoptions, which is hopefully only temporarily.

But that's not why you will soon love Jessica too.

Here's why.

She has started a jewelry + accessory line called Noonday Collections and on my word, I literally want every single thing she has. Really. I've seen it all. I've touched it all. I've tried half of it on. I've wiped a single solitary tear from my left eye as I put it all back.

Noonday was recently blogged about by the ArtReach Fair Trade Festival , Hey Now Whoa Now and Dreaming Big Dreams and Jessica has been asked to speak at Austin's Pure Conference.

Jessica came to Houston last week and hosted a party at my friend Karre's, and in addition to making todiefor spice bread with homemade maple frosting, Karre graciously donated her hostess commission to us, because we are adopting from Ethiopia. Have I mentioned we are adopting from Ethiopia? I have? Okay then.

But the best part of Noonday, even better than the fact that I want every. stinking. thing, and the fact that the profits help to put a little Rwandan boy in his forever Austin family, is that all of the items come from artisans around the world who receive a fair living wage for their work. These beautiful items are helping to provide a way out of poverty for oppressed people.

I told you it was cool.

So, are you sitting down? Let me show you what I stared at repeatedly last week with a covetous heart:

The Tagua Drops Necklace

Sigh.

It is made from sustainably harvested tagua seeds and is adjustable. A perfect splash of color! Handcrafted be artisans in Ecuador who are part owners in the company (read about them here) for the Andean Collection. (Please note that the necklace is accented with the Acai Rope Necklace. - it is only the blue strand.)

Y'all, those seeds started out looking like something scary and turned into something beautiful.

I could get so very allegorical with that but I'll spare you. You're welcome.

Y'all are going to love how reasonable the prices are. And if you are in Texas and want to host a trunk show, contact her!

 You may leave up to four comments for four entries:

1. Go to Noonday, drool, come back, leave me a comment with your favorite item in the store = one entry
2. Tweet about this giveaway and comment that you did = one entry
3. Follow Noonday on Twitter comment that you did = one entry 
4. Paste this giveaway on your facebook comment that you did = one entry

I'll draw a random one of you on Wednesday. It's got to be shipped to a US address. If I can't contact you easily, I'll draw someone else. Ready, set, comment!

It's a fine time for a giveaway

Oh, man, y'all are gonna L O V to the E the giveaway I have going on bright and early tomorrow morning.

I'll give you a hint.

It's blue and you will think you will give it to someone for Christmas but, I betcha I see you with it.

Stay tuned!!

Drawn from Water

"It Began with Bale" from Drawn From Water on Vimeo.


I don't know if you read Drawn From Water - it is one of the most amazing ministries I know of. But they are in a pickle.

Please go here to read. I've already donated. Let's knock their socks off.

(And please copy this post on your own blog!)

A Glimpse of Heaven

I'm over at BlogHer today click here to read :)

God does not hate Africa

 Skulls at Genocide Memorial Site in Ntaram, Rwanda, where 10,000 were killed inside a Catholic church

Somewhere, thousands of miles away, in a stranger's womb, my daughter is sleeping. Or kicking. Or yawning. Her mother's swollen feet walk the earth of a land I have never seen. In an effort to get to know the land of my daughter, I have been reading every book on Africa I can get my hands on.

It hasn't been easy.

Because this land of Africa seems cursed. So the books I have read aren't fun. They aren't amusing. In the ten or so books I have laughed, oh, maybe once? I can't count the tears though. The stories stay with me, especially the stories from this book. Those stories flash images in my head as I watch my children play. They haunt my nights and cause me to question all that I know that I believe.

I stay up too late reading and I cry and I brood and I find it difficult to fall asleep. I tell my husband I am wrecked. I come to a conclusion.

God hates Africa.

He must. I know that, theologically, I can't reckon this. Biblically, I can't reckon this. Logically, I can't reckon this. But the stories I find seem to prove it, beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's a continent - not just part of a continent, not a fraction of a continent - but almost twelve million square miles of more heartache, more bloodshed, more death and disease and trauma than surely any land at any time in the history of the world. Right? And the stories keep coming. As soon as one nation's horrors abate, another nation picks up the slack. Evil reigns. I see the devil cackling and dancing over every mutilated body. God must hate Africa.

I begin a new book. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. This is the title. Catchy? It catches my heart and my fear and 78 pages in, it will not let me go.

I tell my husband what I know, 78 pages in, about the Rwandan genocide. I tell him what I did not know in April of 1994. I tell him what I was too busy to learn during the month before my 24th birthday.

I tell him that while I was starting to work at my first job, the Tutsis of Rwanda were hearing the charge on the radio from the government for their neighbors, friends, teachers, doctors, wives, husbands, and parents, the Hutu tribe, to "do your work," by killing them. About how the Tutsis of Rwanda fled to the churches as their sanctuary until the priests and pastors murdered the very children they had baptized. How the Hutus invaded the churches and with guns and grenades, if they had them, but more often with clubs or hammers or machetes that hacked the limbs and heads off of the children in front of their parents. Then they raped the women in front of their husbands. Then they cut off the men's genitals before they hacked them to pieces with by then dulled machetes. Their skulls, they used as target practice. And they marched to the next village, to the next church, to the next slaughter.

One hundred days later, a million Tutsis were dead.

And I say, once more, that I think that God hates Africa.

This morning, warm cup of coffee in hand, I read Isaiah chapter 10. About how the Assyrians edged toward Jerusalem, ever closer. About how at Nob, on the Mount of Olives, with Jerusalem in their sight, the Assyrians were oddly, miraculously, stopped and Judah was spared from their work of slaughter.

But Gallim was not spared, nor Anathoth, nor Ramah, nor Gebim, nor Laishah, nor even Samaria, the capital of Israel. Into these villages the Assyrians marched and shouted and besieged the trembling Hebrews. There they hacked the children to death. There they cut off the hands and feet off the men and ripped open the pregnant women, then cut off the genitals of their husbands.  There they built a tower from the old men's skulls. There the devil cackled and danced over every mutilated body.

Yet I know for a fact that God does not hate Israel, the land of his chosen, the birthplace of his Son.

And I know, now, that God does not hate Africa, despite the wars and the genocides and the AIDS.

Nor did God hate Germany as the Gestapo tortured the old men and murdered the babies in the arms of their mothers.

Nor does God hate America where behind closed doors, children are tortured and mutilated, while in public our government proudly funds the murders of millions of babies who are ripped from their mother's wombs every day.

Isaiah doesn't stop at Nob. Chapter 11 comes. Here the Spirit tells Isaiah to promise that later, much later, after the fierce, ruthless Assyrians have been defeated, after the enemy Babylonia enslaves God's chosen, after feuding Israel has been reunited, after the enemy Rome conquers Jerusalem, then, a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on this shoot. With righteousness he will judge the the Jews, the Romans, the Germans, the Tutsis, the Hutus, the Americans. With justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.

He will not judge any of us by what he sees with his eyes. He will gaze deep into our hearts, into my heart. He will proclaim myself to be no greater than my enemy. He will declare that my anger is as murderous as a machete. My tongue is as lethal as a gas chamber. My heart of hearts longs to rape and kill and mutilate. For I know that nothing good dwells in me.

I am a Hutu. I am a Nazi. I am a Roman. I am an Assyrian. Given the right time, the right place, the right culture, the right government, the right reason, I would murder the very children of my womb. To believe otherwise is to deceive myself.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me.

But the shoot, the Lord, will provide a way. A Prince of Peace who will be tortured, and mutilated, and murdered as he cries on a hill called 'the place of the skull'. The devil will cackle and dance but his cackling and dancing will be in vain.

For by his wounds he will carry my iniquity. Though my sins are like scarlet I will be declared white as snow. His wounds will heal my wounds from this world. I will be adopted by the Father and I will be given the very Spirit that rests upon him and by that Spirit I too will wail for justice for the oppressed and the poor and the trembling and the slaughtered.

Later, later, he will establish justice on earth. Later the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard with the goat, the Jew with the Nazi, the Hutu with the Tutsi. Later all his children will be gathered under one flag and there will be no fear, no trembling, no tears, no horror. Later the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Until that time, we read, and grieve, and groan, and wait, and pray, and do, and we praise the Lord Almighty as he does his work.


Isaiah 10-11

Isaiah 53
I Samuel 16:7
Psalm 51:5
Matthew 5:21-22
Matthew 15:1-16
Mark 15:21-24
Romans 7
Romans 8
Revelation 21
Assyrian references: here and here

My Africa reading list can be accessed here.

howza bout some linklove

** I'd love to do a bunch o giveaways for the holidays. You got something to give? Holla. itsalmostnaptime@gmail dot com  **

This made me do a happy happy happy dance: In the beginning 

Loralynn is compling a list of places to Christmas shop that will benefit orphans. Shoppers and sellers,  go here

Why I'm Quitting the Glee Club

Don't Wait - it is your child God is placing on your heart

Ah, lunch, the bain of my existence: School Lunchbox Ideas and Lunch Box Laughter

On Amazon you can download the Veggietales Christmas CD FREE, that's right, FREE 


I want my kids to be like Addysin when they grow up. Um, I want to be like Addysin when I grow up. Go here to see why.


White Mama soon I will relate to this well

Oh, how I relate to Megan now

I think we raised around $3000 from garage sales. Here are some tips on how to do it

When I taught PreK, this was my favorite website. You can have a lot of fun here.


Quote:
“My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered the interruptions were my work.” ~~ Henri Nouwen
Recipe:
It's soup weather and we all heart this one

Podcast:
Walker and I just discovered Stuff You Should Know, and we already feel brilliant


And your youtube. It's only 51 days away, y'all:

Witt to bible steady

It's been a good thing to take a break.  Not that it was an actual choice, it was more of a, I-am-so-overwhelmed-that-I-can't-remember-which-day-it-is-much-less-blog-about-it kinda situation. 

My dear husband has gotten a new job in sales. This is a blessing, because 1) he is SUCH a salesman. Really.  And by that I mean Danny Corday, not Todd Packer and 2) it does mean more money, as my friend Jolie said, we might can order Cokes in restaurants now instead of water. Hallelujah!  The bad side: 1) he travels more and 2) he stresses more.  The travel part, I am gonna be Superwoman and deal with.  But the stress part violates our prenup which clearly stated that I was to be the designated stressbag and he was to be my steady jolly laid back rock.

It's been an adjustment.

Speaking of travel. Why, oh why, does my burglar alarm always decide to go off when he is out of town? Like last night, around 11pm.  Twice.  It indicated that a door or window was ajar in the room that I was in although I could tell - at least it appeared to me - that it was not.  But maybe it was.  Surely, surely I burned off 200-300 calories in the heartracing that ensued while I considered the possibilities.  The many, many possibilities.

I asked the constable to come by just to check, because better paranoid than axemurdered, I always say. Actually I never say that but when he showed up, y'all, the boogeyman I was imagining lurking in my backyard could not have looked creepier!  Square head - and I am not just thinking of Frankenstein because it was just Halloween, boy really had a square head - and pale skin, with deep sunken vampire eyes with dark circles under them - and I am not just thinking of vampires because it was just Halloween. As I showed him to the back door I kept an eye on his flashlight, in case he whacked me over the head with it and my life was immediately and tragically turned into a Dateline special.

It's amazing how quickly one can envision an entire Dateline starring oneself during the twenty seconds it takes to walk Frankenstein slash Dracula slash Ted Bundy across one's living room.

A friend of mine was actually on Dateline because her sorority sister's husband killed her and tried to make it look like a robbery because obviously he didn't watch Dateline or he would know that never works. All the sorority sisters were flown in for an interview but my friend got very little screen time because she simply refused to humiliate herself by doing the sorority song with the hand motions and all that business for the camera. Which is, you know, why we're friends. But she was also in this awful conundrum, because it was horrible and sad that her friend was killed, but - what should she wear for the interview? I assured her that if it were my Dateline - which it very well could have been last night - I would indeed want her to get fresh highlights and a cute new outfit.

Life goes on, y'all.  And it's not like we get to be on TV every day.

Enter segueway here.

Tonight was a major milestone at our house - Eva Rose became a Tuesday Night Girl for the first time!

She has been begging me to go to bible study and see Bethmoore for a long time and tonight it worked out that she could come with me. She loved hearing Sarah Reeves sing, she loved getting to see Bethmoore in person, and she really loved the sign language ladies. But it was bit hard for her to sit still for the entire time though and I felt especially sorry for Lindsee and Jennifer who sat next to her and must have wondered if I had gotten Spazzy Wigglefritz a grande on the way over. At one point during the lesson she kinda waved toward Bethmoore and said to me, "I know all that she's talking about."

She knew all about the Imago Dei and how it was presented in us at creation, retained its distinction after the rebellion, and from the time of the Messiah has been a progressive reflection of the glory of Christ until its completion at the New Creation.

I tell you what, kindergarten just isn't like it was when we were in kindergarten.

I took notes, she took notes:

The thing I love most about the invented spelling of emergent readers is how it reveals the way we speak. Here in Texas, we witt to bible steady.

And that's exactly where I want to be - at bible steady.

Night y'all.

Good grief, woman, can't you at least post a rerun?

I Peter 1:18-19
from August 2009


My daughter has an incident happen in public, an embarrassing incident. Extremely embarrassing. I am not present when it happens but my husband fills me in. And, he adds, when it happened, Shepherd pointed at her, and told other kids, look at what my sister did.

My chest closes in on me as I whip around to confront him. You did that? I accuse. I yell. That's awful. That's the meanest thing you have ever done! She is your baby sister. Your job is to protect your baby sister! My heart is broken, Shepherd, it is broken!

His face crumples at my rebuke, but mostly he looks confused.

I am seven, maybe eight years old. We're down the street at the neighbors' house, the neighbors with the teenage girl and the little stepbrother. I am in a tree in their front yard. The stepbrother - the bratty, stupid stepbrother - is whipping my bare legs with a switch. He won't stop.

When I try to climb higher, he just whips harder. The switch stings. Teenage sister and her friends watch, and laugh, and encourage him.

My brother is there. My big brother, whom I adore, but who hasn't been wanting to play with me lately. My big brother who thinks teenage girl and her friends are cool. He won't look at me. I keep staring at him from the tree, desperate, waiting for his eyes to meet mine, waiting for him to rescue me.

He looks at the ground and pretends he's not there, that I'm not here. The big kids laugh and cheer. The switch stings my legs. And he won't look at me.

I jump down from the tree and run as fast as I can past the four houses between there and my own, enter my mother's kitchen, find the Tupperware full of cookies, and eat them between my sobs.

He has broken my heart.

The chasm grows wider and wider. There are other incidents. There are other heartbreaks.

I am nineteen, maybe twenty years old, home from college, in my mother's kitchen. I make fajitas, really good fajitas, that take a long time to cook. I make myself a plate. He comes and heaps all of the fajitas on his plate. Jay! I shout. Don't eat all of them! I want more! Mom hasn't even had any, that's so rude! Put some back!

Fine, ----! he yells, and he throws the plate of fajitas - all the fajitas that I worked on for a long time - into the sink. Here's your ---- fajitas!!

I stand at the sink. I am shaking with rage. My eyes look at him, at the ruined fajitas, at the knife in the sink that I used to cut the steak. In one very long millisecond, I imagine myself grabbing the knife, and plunging it into his heart.

The way he plunged the knife into mine when I was in that tree, all those years ago, at teenage girl's house.

I want to do it. With all that I am, I want to do it. But I have reasons not to. Because it is wrong? No. Because he is my brother? No. Because of my mom? No.

I think, I am not going to jail over him. I turn and walk out of my mother's kitchen.

My heart is wicked, my heart is dark. My heart is pragmatic.

The night of my daughter's incident, I reflect on all this, on so much heartache. My chest closes in. I pray that my son and his sister, who adores him, will remain close. That he will protect her. That she will never know the feeling of being abandoned by her brother - or her father.

I think of Christ, on a tree, mocked, hurting, heartbroken, abandoned by his brothers and his Father.

She is not you, He whispers. And Shepherd is not him. And their father is not your father. And this family is not that family. And then is not now.

All things are new. Including my heart.

I am quieted as a word enters my mind: redemption.