Tornado relief

 

This has been a week of bad news concerning my friends. NO MORE. No more heart attacks, tornadoes, adoption holdups, or mystery diagnoses for anyone I love. Got it?!? Good.

 
Many of you know Lisa McKay of The Preacher's Wife blog. She also had a book published last year for preachers wives called You Can Still Wear Cute Shoes. You Can Still Wear Cute Shoes: And Other Great Advice from an Unlikely Preacher's Wife.


Night before last, my friend Lisa McKay huddled in the crawlspace of her home with her husband and kids, praying like she had never prayed before, while the tornado roared overhead.

Georgia Jan posted about her conversation with Lisa today. Please go here to read it.

Please pray for Luke and Lisa, that they may be Christ to those around them who are devastated right now. I'm so thankful they were spared.

This is the church Luke pastors; I'm very glad that I have a direct person that I know to send a check too. Mine is already in the mail. If you'd like yours to follow:

Ider Baptist Church
atn: Disaster Relief
1078 Dogwood Drive
Ider, Al 35981. 

Please feel free to copy that address and put it on your blog. 

Let's hug our families tight this weekend y'all.

A word to my sisters and brothers adopting from Ethiopia who may be depressed and or/pulling out their hair

I hate this wait. I hate the roller coaster we've been on lately. I hate not knowing if I'll have a baby by Christmas or maybe Easter or maybe next Christmas.

But I think it is a little easier on me because I planned my wedding when I was 12. I have a notebook where I wrote out fake wedding announcements, and all through high school I carried wedding dresses torn out from Bride's Magazine in my wallet - ugly 80s wedding dresses with many, many beads and poofy shoulders and those weird headbands that had dangly things down their cheeks.

My senior year of college, I looked at my roommate and said, "We have three months left to get our MRS's! Ready, set, go!!" I spent my 20s trying desperately to wrangle a guy into marrying me. Many guys. It never worked, and I was very disappointed. When I was 32 - ten years late for that MRS - I was dating a guy I was just sure was Mr. Right, but was so frustrated that we just couldn't seem to help driving each other crazy. But then my best friend looked at me and said, "Break up with him and marry me." And I did. And it was the BEST decision of my life - and the reason it was so good is because I DIDN'T MAKE IT. God grabbed him and dropped him smack dab in my lap like a ton of bricks leaving me completely out of the planning process because he knew I'd completely screw it all up if he clued me in to his plans.

We got married, and three weeks later I was pregnant. Not really planned, not that quick. The first night my son slept through the night, we got pregnant again. NOT. PLANNED. Seven months after she was born, I was pregnant again. OPPOSITE OF PLANNED. Still look at that child and can't figure out how she got here. Number four was planned, by me, not my husband. ;) When that baby was born, my oldest was three and a half years old. Only a crazy woman would plan to have four children in three years. Only a crazy God.

I had planned to adopt from China since back when I still carried ugly wedding dresses in my wallet. Then we decided to do foster care. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd have an African kid calling me 'Mom.' And I certainly never thought that I'd have an African daughter calling Walker 'Dad.'

God has taken my life, shaken it upside down and any way he wanted to in the last eight years, and it's good. It's really good. It couldn't be any better. And it's because he is sovereign, which means he is in charge of the fall (or pull) of every single hair on my head and my kids' heads and the sweet head of my invisible daughter who is in a country I was called to adopt from before I could even locate it on a map.

I know we are going to get a child from Ethiopia, and I know that God chose that baby for us before he laid the foundations of the world. And MOWA and Gladney and judges and investigations are gnats compared to my God. They canNOT thwart his plans. God's plans are un-thwartable.

My plan was to have her home by now. My plan was wrong.

My plan was to be married by 22. Oh, hallelujah, I was wrong on that one too. (And my 2002 wedding dress was gorgeous btw.)

My plan was to have my children spaced like a normal person. I look at my four precious crazy children - and I'm so glad I was wrong.

None of this is a shock to God, none of this is making him go, "Crap! I meant for them to have those babies by now, golly gee whiz, wish MOWA would hurry up!" Nope. His clock is still running right on time.

I can't play the "what if I'd gone with another agency" game, because that's not possible, because my daughter is with Gladney.

The same Lord who set the stars in the sky and calls them by name, who knitted us and our babies together in the womb, and who has numbered every day of our lives on earth and the day of our deaths and every day of our children's lives - that God has not left his throne because of some politics in Ethiopia. He is Lord over Ethiopia. He is Lord over my child's adoption. And I am not.

He already had on his holy calendar what day she would come home, and he has not crossed it out and moved it around. Nothing has changed in his plan.

And sometimes his plan is hard. But it's always good.

 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.  From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.  ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Acts 17:24-28

He is risen!!

Annibale Carracci. The Holy Women at the Tomb of Christ, 1597-1598

Craig's List - Sectional for Sale

This is the ad I posted yesterday.
I purposefully neglected to mention it's long history of being peed-pooped-puked upon.
It sold today. Ca-ching! 


Our green couch is for sale. Comes in 3 pieces, measures approximately 5' x 11' x 7'.

I ain't gonna lie, it's been loved. It's held several babies and the cushions have been used to make many forts and my own butt has gotten significantly fatter on this very couch in front of Bravo TV.

But it still has a whole lot of love left to give. Don't you want some green couch love??

The best part about this couch is that all the cushion covers can be removed and machine washed, and I will do this for you so you'll get it fresh and Tide smelling.

It is olive green and a corduroy type fabric that makes it very easy to wipe away spots. There is a patched hole on one cushion but it is on the side that faces away so it will just be our little secret.

Bought several years ago for too much money from Foley's (may they RIP) back when we were childless, ie, rich enough to buy new furniture. Since we can't sell our house and move in this dang market, I told the husband I want to redo the whole house and my Green Period is ended and I am now entering a Blue Period, that's why we are selling it.

See that TV armoir? It's outta here too. And another Big Green Chair with a Big Green Ottoman. And a Pretty Red Couch. And possibly a Small Child or two.

$225 cash obo

No smoking (blech, nasty habit that) and no pets.

Kids and grandmas priced separately.

Better Me than you

Because I am barefoot 99% of the time, and because we aren't the neatest house on the block, the incident of stepping on sharp, pointy objects is an all too common occurrence.

I wish I could blame it on the kids, but I've never had the neatest house on the block. My floor has always been a bit of a landmine. The soles of my feet are riddled with the scars of my domestic ineptitude.

Recently for some odd reason I was blessed to be wearing shoes when I stepped up the stairs and directly on top of a wayward nail which pierced straight through the sole of my shoe and into my poor foot. As I screamed dramatically, the thought ran through my mind which, for almost seven years, has been repeated every time I have been assaulted by my own home: Glad I got to that first. Better me than one of the kids.

That pretty much sums up the change in our hearts (and pain tolerance) caused by motherhood, doesn't it? A tack in the foot no longer yields screaming and curses, but gratitude. The same tack could have harmed the sweet soft skin of my precious child. It hurts, but it would have hurt my baby worse. Better me than him.

Soon after Shepherd's birth, I realized my love was so strong for this child that, not only would I take a bullet for him, but I'd take a bullet for him gladly. With zero hesitation. Now the chances of me being asked to take a bullet for one of my children are thankfully very small. But thumbtacks? Slivers of glass? Runaway carpet nails? A Lego with a vendetta? It's a repetitive - sometimes daily - sacrifice.

Today I was cleaning the girls' room. As I slid my hand under Maggie's bed, my right thumb made direct contact with a pointy piece of glass. A rather large piece of glass, which could have done substantial damage to a small foot. My blood oozed from my body, while, as usual, I expressed gratitude for the opportunity to get to it first. Better me than her.

I stared at the blood stained glass when suddenly, I stifled a sob, and doubled over.
For the image of my bloody Savior hanging on a cross had appeared in my mind.
And He said, Better Me than you.

The Lord, in His wondrous mercy, beat me to the piercing, and the pain, and the blood. It was a sacrifice. Because He loves me even more than I love my own children.

When they tied his arms to a post with his back exposed, and He braced Himself for what was to come, He said, Better Me than you.

When they raised the whip, it's tendrils tied with pointy pieces of glass and metal and bone, He said, Better Me than you.

When they brought the whip down on His back, with full force, over and over and over and over and over, He said, Better Me than you.

When the skin had been shredded and the arteries and veins in the muscles in His back began to hemorrhage, He said, Better Me than you.

When they dug the crown of thorns into his head, He said, Better Me than you.

When they grabbed His beard in their hands and pulled as hard as they could to rip the hair from His face, He said, Better Me than you.

When they cursed Him and called Him the foulest names they could think of, He said, Better Me than you.

When they slapped and punched His bleeding cheeks, and mocked Him, and spit on Him, and beat Him with a staff until His bloody tortured body was unrecognizable as human, He said, Better Me than you.

When they forced him to lift the seventy five pound crossbeam, lay it across his scourged and lacerated shoulders, and ordered his failing body to walk, He said, Better Me than you.

When the loss of blood and the pain from the tortures caused him to stumble and drop the cross, He said, Better Me than you.

When they stripped off all His clothes and threw His naked, mutilated body down on the cross, hammered thick, heavy, wrought-iron nails into His wrists, then lifted Him into place, He said, Better Me than you.

When they crossed his ankles and hammered similar nails into the arches of his feet, He said, Better Me than you.

When He struggled to breathe, causing Himself excruciating pain no matter how He moved, He said, Better Me than you.

When He looked into the face of a mother, His mother, watching the murder of her precious child, her baby boy, He said, Better Me than you.

When His Father turned His back on Him, when He felt most forsaken, when He cried out in agony and heartache and despair, He said, Better Me than you.

When His chest filled with fluid and He felt His own heart drown within Him, He said, Better Me than you.

When He cried out before He finally suffocated to death, He said, Better Me than you.

When He took on the wrath of God and paid the penalty for your sins, and my sins, and our beloved children's sins, He said, Better Me than you.

This is love:
not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:10

7-8-10

I am by no means proud

but I did giggle just a little bit.

Ironically, Aleseo is the one who taught him the funcan word. Then threw him under the bus. Twirp. So we had the bad words talk and the some people are not good friends talk all in one day.

And so it begins...

Shout outs and amens

In case you've wondered what the whole Rob Bell "Love Wins" brouhaha is all about, he is interviewed by Martin Bashir here and it is worth your time. Yes, this is Martin Bashir who interviewed Princess Di and Michael Jackson - and who goes to Tim Keller's Redeemer Pres in NYC! Who knew?!?

Houston peeps: Love and Logic is coming to town, and I am so there. 

Make an Easter Garden This is from Ann's blog a couple years back...some day I will do beautiful artsy things like this. Not this year though. Un uh. Ain't gon happen. Let's get real, ain't gon happen this decade. But perhaps my grandkids will get to see my artsy side...

Befores and Afters of Japan - devastating.

A big AMEN to this one: My answer to "Do you want more children?"

Amen amen amen: Courage, Fear and Adoption


I realized recently that a lot of Christians don't  know the story of how Planned Parenthood began. If you don't know, you need to. Planned Parenthood's Eugenics Roots

And how Planned Parenthood had something called The Negro Project.

The Christian Divorce Rate Myth (summary: Christian posers get divorced at the same rate as the rest of the population. People who actually follow Jesus don't. Y'all knew that already but here's the stats.)

Ever wondered if Great Britain is the same as England is the same as the UK? And what's up with Ireland? Here ya go.

Your podcast:
We listened to "Is Islam a Religion of Peace" on NPR's religion podcast, which led us to Intelligence Squared, which is a list of podcasts of debates on anything from Obamacare to organic food to Walker's personal favorite called "Good Riddance to Mainstream Media." Oh my word, I could spend all day here. And no One Things would ever be accomplished ever again.

Book I just read:

About a couple of college kids who become homeless for five months as a test of their faith. I really enjoyed it, and I appreciate that he made such a rated R topic very rated PG so that I can read it with my kids in a couple of years.


Your youtube:
If you laugh at Julie Bowen's story about her kids, then you are probably a very bad mother.




I myself was rolling on the floor.
Get Fatty out!!

A vision of my father

Last week, we were at our favorite restaurant and while we were waiting for a table, I was blessed to grab my iPhone and snap this photo of my husband and our first daughter.

I think it may be one of my favorite pictures ever taken.

Obviously I love it because it portrays two of the people I love most in this world, and it captures them perfectly.

But it illustrates much more to me than that. Because although I love my father, and believe he may have done the best that he knew how, I have no photos of him holding me like this. Nor have I any memories of him holding me like this.

The photo reminds me of grace, of broken cycles, of redemption, of a Christ who makes all things new. 

But mostly I love this photo because I know - I know - that even if I never had an earthly father to who looked at my this way as he led me in a crazy dance, I have a Heavenly Father who still does.

And the look of joy on my daughter's face reminds me of the joy that I feel when I gaze into His.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! 

And that is what we are! 

1 John 3:1

The best laid plans go to soup

So, my Just One Thing today was to empty the "place where fire is made" room - that's what Walker just called it - yes, we've lived here since 2003 and still don't quite know what to call that room - of everything that did not belong in it.

Didn't happen. Because I was informed that Walker HAD to have a backpack before he went camping this weekend with Shep and a dozen other hyper Cub Scouts, so he would swing by to get it after work, ie, be home late. To which I replied, "No! No! Please come home! No!!!!" with terror in my eyes and commenced to twitching.

I don't handle dinner time well. My kids just aren't that cute from after school till Dad gets home. The rest of the day, they're stinking adorable. Come 4:00, they spout horns and barbed tails which they use to maim each other over serious issues like arguing whose mommy I am. MY MOMMY! (whack) NO! MY MOMMY! (gore) NO! MY MOMMY! (pummel)

It's not adorable.
Not even a wee bit precious.

So my Just One Thing became purchase a backpack. And since I was already going to venture out in public with makeup and shoes on and everything, I decided to hit Stein Mart and WalMart and the Eye Doctor Mart and Old Navy Mart and Lowes Mart.

I went to WalMart for 1) milk and 2) shoes for Ike.

So yeah so my point of this fascinating recount of my day is to tell you that round about the Capri Sun aisle at WalMart I got a hankering for soup, but I needed something quick and easy, and remembered this soup that my mom and aunt and I used to make back in the day when I had all the time in the world to make gourmet soups but didn't.

And I'm going to share it with you.

I really should just make you some and serve it to you and when you go, "Wow! This is so good!" I should just smile all Top Chef like but I can't do that any more than I can resist saying, when someone compliments my shoes, "Can you believe I got them on CLEARANCE at TARGET??"

Just shut up and say thank you, Missy.

That'll be my One Thing for tomorrow.

But for today:

Just Shut Up and Say Thank You Tortilla Soup

(I double this, cuz, you know.)

1 family size (28oz?) can of Campbell's Chicken and Rice
1/2 can of Rotel tomatoes with green chilis
1/2 can crushed tomatoes
Water to suit you

That's really all you need. But I got all fancy, and added
1/2 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 can corn, drained
cumin to taste
Juice of half a lime

Serve with tortilla chips, avocado, grated cheese, sour cream.

There you go. Your Just One Thing for tomorrow will be Cook All Awesome Like.

At least now my disorganized hovel of a home smells good.

Just One Thing

The other day Walker asked me what my dreams were. I told him, "I don't really have any. My dreams were always to get married, have kids, and adopt kids. My dreams have all come true, or are in the process of coming true. Everything else in my life is just gravy."

Well I lied.

My unintentional deception was revealed to me as today, all day, I repeatedly opened up my pantry door, stared at the contents within, and felt a sense of bliss, make that, euphoria, in the innermost core of my soul at the sight of a dream come true.

Take a look yourself. You might want to grab your Snugglie though....

because I bet you just got chills.

I dream of being organized.

I am cursed cursed I tell you CURSED by virtue of being born an order-craver who is not naturally orderly. A clutterbug who hates clutter. A mess who hates messes. 

I've always lacked the ability to constrain my penchant for leaving a souvenir of myself at every place I visit. My "Missy Trail," as my mom calls it.

So if you think having four small children helped an already dire situation, you'd be sadly mistaken. Perhaps even feeble minded.

It is even harder now to erase the carbon footprint of my Missy Trail, what with the Shepherd Trails, Eva Trails, Maggie Trails and Ike Trails that spoke off of it like schizophrenic drunk monkeys in a labyrinth.

Last week, in an especially hormonally induced exhaustion provoked cesspool of overwhelmed fit I told my husband that pretty much every day I feel like the mayor of Loser Creek Forest North (a suburb of Loserville. Better schools.) "It's like every time I walk through a room there are about eight piles of uncompleted projects and they all shoot flaming arrows that say FAILURE right at my heart."

(...a melodramatic who hates drama...)

God bless my husband. Had he known, he might have gotten a degree in counseling just to be married to me.

Between the tears, somehow the two of us came up with: The One Thing Rule.

Because I tend to get so overwhelmed by all the things on my to-do list that I just run and hide in the Land of the Glittery Unicorn Fairy, aka the Internet, he said that every night he would ask me what my One Thing to get accomplished the next day was.

Just One Thing y'all!! That's all! If I accomplished nothing but my One Thing for that day, I would feel like a WINNER. (Winner!) Anything else that got done that day would just be the cherry on top of my productivity sundae.

Yesterday, my One Thing was the pantry.

And lo, the plan workedeth!!

Let me take you on a tour (pronounced "turr" here in Loser Creek Forest North.)

Directly ahead, may I direct your attention to the new shiny Make Your Own Lunch bins, full of packaged delights within easy reach of the shortest lunch maker's sticky little fingers. Directly above that, see how easily the same small hands can grasp their very own instant oatmeal and varied cereals including Kroger brand Alien (judge not lest) for a self-served nutritious-ish breakfast.

Atop the duluxe double tiered Lazy Susan, observe the two ingredients for any gourmet meal: Peanut Butter and Nutella.

(Poor Susan. I bet she wasn't really lazy, just overwhelmed.)

Directly above this are the basic carbohydrates of the American human family unit, bread, Saltines and chips, and above that,

coveted items of the Toddler Black Market: pancake syrup, animal and Graham crackers, and ice cream cones made by elves.

Other One Things that have been accomplished include exchanging summer and winter clothes and shoes for four children (no small feat) and organizing their cubbies.

An inconclusive list of future One Things: tackling this beast

slaying this dragon

and last but not least, exorcising this demon.

(I'd show you an interior picture, but I try to keep this blog family friendly and the inside of my minivan is far too horrific for those of a sensitive disposition.)

Yes, those are stickers on the windows. Lots.
I'm really not in a position where I can talk about it yet. Maybe if my husband gets that counseling degree, I'll be ready to share.

So what about you? What's your One Thing you could do today?

One Day Without Shoes

Today is One Day Without Shoes, hosted by Tom's Shoes, to bring awareness to the fact that the majority of children in the world do not have shoes.

Watch this video to learn more, especially about how it effects the children in the land where our baby waits for us.



And if you feel especially brave, put words like "podoconiosis" or "worm infected feet" in there and see why we're doing this.

Then hop on over to my darling Megan's blog SortaCrunchy and see how you can help.

Today I am headed to the Museum of Health and Medical Science for a field trip, then I must pop into Lowe's to buy an auger to unstop our ever stopped up toilet.

Just realized I've had 3 cups of coffee so far.
I'm gonna have to go to the bathroom at some point.
Barefoot.
Note: pack a paper sack into which to hyperventilate.

I'll be tweeting about it here.

And hey y'all -  
IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO JOIN ME!!!

Happy birthday Ikey Wikey Doodle all the Day!!

Today is my baby's birthday.

He's FOUR.

And equally exciting - y'all - as of last week - the child who refused to get on board IS NOW DRIVING THE POTTY TRAIN.

Which means I am WITHOUT DIAPERS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2003.

Which is a LONG LONG STINKY TIME."

All aboard!!!!!!!!!!

In February, I went to a parent teacher conference at Ike's preschool that basically went like this: "Well, Mrs. Dollahon, I'm just wondering exactly what craptastic parenting skills you are employing because I really don't like your kid! At all! Whatever you are doing, wowza, it sucks!!" No, those were not the exact words, but that was most definitely the gist.

I am sharing that little story with you because, after confessing it to sweet friends, I discovered that many of my friends who are GREAT MOMS have had very similar teacher conferences. I thought I was the only one - not. So if it happens to you, you aren't alone. Sucky moms unite!!

His teacher asked if he got any attention at home, which caused me, even in my shock and awe, to laugh out loud. Um, the baby boy of four? The extremely cute, extremely cuddly and extremely demanding baby of four? Yes. He gets attention. Never. You. Worry.

 

(Soon afterwards I had an epiphany: because we are in a large family, from now on, I should expect that any time one of my children has an issue, the default will be, "Oh, s/he must not get enough attention at home." Cause everyone knows kids from smaller families are purrrrrrrrfeck.)

 

Anyway, after many tears and prayers and talks with family and friends, we moved Ikety Wikety to a new school. A school where he is flourishing with his new wonderful, sweet, Jesus-loving, patient, firm, experienced teacher Miss Kimberly who also happens to be The Potty Whisperer.

We decided to put him in school every day until he is fully trained, because at our home, continuity is not our strong suit (just part of my Sucky Mother of Many skillz.)

I finally realized something I have always dreamed about: I outsourced potty training.

Hall.Le.Lu to the Jah.


April 4, 2007, was the worst day of my life. Happy ending, terrible beginning. If you want to read about how sweet baby boy scared the holy moly out of us four years ago today, you can begin his birthstory here.


Here's a video I made from way back then.

I'd cry, but I'm way too happy.

CHOOO CHOOOOO!!!!!