Looking Over the Fence at Prop 8

I spent most of last night on an author's message board, discussing Prop 8. This author has written books I absolutely love, but over time she has gotten more vulgar and pushed agendas that I don't agree with. I don't read her anymore. But since I have friends who frequent her message board, I've stopped in there on occasion.

Her son is gay and she is very much opposed to Prop 8. When she posted a plea for people to vote no on Prop 8, I respectfully shared why I was voting YES. It turned into a HUGE thread and surprisingly, it remained very civil. There were only a few mean posts. I ignored them, as my goal was only to express the other side, which I think I managed to do adequately.

I have been actively involved in promoting Prop 8. But that doesn't mean I don't feel troubled about those who think I hate them or don't care about what they want. It is extremely distressing when people assume you feel a certain way. Especially if that "certain way" is negative.

I know God loves ALL His children. And I know He grieves for those that are hurting because of Prop 8. But He will not change His law to appease man.

In Corinthians 11:3, 8-12, we read: "But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God...... For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God."

I think this scripture is often misinterpreted. But when we spend the time to really think and pray about it, we understand that everyone has their place in the family. And that's what Prop 8 is all about - establishing members of the family.

Vote YES on Prop 8!!!

For more info on Prop 8, please visit my other blog - Protecting Freedoms, Protecting Families.

Where I See Cordy in Five Years

Okay, like probably about a million other people, I was disappointed to read that Cordy was fictional and her story was over. (Click here for the deets on Cordy's story. Click here for the deets on the reveal.) Some had already guessed, and I admit I wondered a few times myself, but I blocked those thoughts and went with the assumption that she was real.

So instead of being mad (because I too sent an email to Cordy, which in hind sight made me feel kind of stupid), I decided that I just had to laugh. No other feelings were going to be productive for me.

And then this morning, I started thinking.....what would Cordy's life be like in five years? Here's what I came up with. This is just for fun and I figured I and a few others could get a laugh out of it and ease the disappointment of yesterday.

Five years down the road, Cordy thinks her life is CRAP! That's right, CRAP! Her 4 year old just pooped and wiped herself. And while Cordy is grateful that she is so independent, she's less than thrilled that her daughter's counting skills are still developing. So instead of counting out so many squares of toilet paper to get the job done, she used half a roll of toilet paper. Yes, that's right, HALF A ROLL of TP. So then Cordy had to clean all that toilet paper out of the toilet (while the poop was still in there, of course). And while she was so diligently engaged in bringing cleanliness to her house again, her 2 year old was sitting on her knees, reading the children's book that Cordy had written and gotten published. While that was a righteous endeavor, her feet were under her bottom. Which was covered in a diaper. Full of poop. That leaked. Because Cordy wasn't able to promptly change her because she was up to her elbows in wet toilet paper. So then, her 2 year old walked around the house (like in Family Circus) and tracked poop all over the house. Yet another poop mess for Cordy to clean. Then to top it all off, Cordy is pregnant again. BIG pregnant. Like, ready to POP. And she's a little stopped up.

Cordy remembers how life was five years ago and wonders how she got to this point. A life full of POOP. CRAP. DOO DOO. She turns on her computer and starts reading Mommy Blogs. Cuz don't we all need an escape sometimes?



How'd you like my "crappy" post? Oh, COME ON!!!! Like we haven't all been there!!!!!!!

Update on Sharing

Savannah threw up ALL NIGHT LONG. I am SOOOOO tired.

I talked to her teacher this morning and apparently her teacher and 3 other students were also sick all night long. They make assignments for snack, so they all ate the same snack yesterday. The only difference was that some had barely any frosting, while others had lots of frosting. Considering that they all got sick within the same 2 hours, I think it's a pretty safe guess that they had food poisoning.

Things are better this morning. She's kept down a popsicle and a few bites of applesauce.

My hat's off to moms of young babies. I swear - I only went one night with barely any sleep and I feel like I want to die, or sleep for a week.

Share and Share Alike

Apparently it was sharing day and no one told me. It's been a while, so I forgot that children can share so well.

When Savannah started complaining that her stomach hurt, I figured it was because I was late in getting dinner together. I was wrong. Someone else had shared the other day at school, and then Savannah shared with us tonight. Lots and lots of vomit. Right after dinner was on the table. Nice.

I sure hope sharing time is OVER.

A Couple Laughs

I apologize in advance to any Democrats.



Give it a few minutes and then try not to laugh.

I AM SUPERMOM!!!

I forgot that Savannah had to bring snack today until this morning. So I didn't have it ready when the carpool picked her up, which meant I had to bring it down to her school, 20-25 minutes away.

I got in the shower, makeup on, dressed, took the dog out to pee, ran to the store to get the snack, and got to the school ALL IN 45 MINUTES!!!!!!!! Can you believe it???? I can't!!!!!

So I just had to post that I'm supermom, I was so proud of myself.

Okay - I know the fact that I forgot she had snack negates my supermom status, but cut me a break, will ya? It's a miracle I got the snack there on time!

P.S. You have to check out Della Hill's site: The Life and Times of Della Hill. That video is hilarious!!!!

Seven Random and/or Weird Facts About Me

This was fun to do. Tagged by Melissa B - everyone who has visited her blog has been tagged. Check it out - Because I Really Can't Get Enough of Myself. And now.....everyone who visits here is tagged. And I DO mean that. If I don't see this on some blogs soon, I'll be bugging you! And yeah, I know that's not really what the rules say (see the pic at the bottom of this post), but ask me if I care. I'll still be looking for random and/or weird facts about you!

So here we go:

1. I never liked the name Jessica. I don't dislike it, I just never liked it. Kind of like the name "Tracy". It's okay - nothing spectacular. My middle child was named Jessica because I had a dream that I had a baby named Jessica and when I got pregnant, I knew I was pregnant with "Jessica". And I have to say - there is not another name that would fit her better. The name has grown on me. Now I kind of love it. And she's an amazing child!

2. I love starting projects, but rarely finish them completely. I can't help it. It's just what I do. And it drives my husband CRAZY.

3. I'm afraid of the ocean. I'm scared to death that I'm going to get eaten by a shark. I know - it's a ridiculous fear, especially when I'm only in up to my knees. But I can't help it.

4. I love romantic stories. I love to read them. I love to watch them. I love to hear them. I'm just a sucker for romance. Matt thinks Die Hard is a romantic movie. He also thinks it's a Christmas movie. What's wrong with this picture????

5. Christmas Eve is the BEST DAY OF THE WHOLE YEAR!!! I'm a sucker for Christmas. And Christmas Eve is our big traditional family gathering. We eat potitza bread, kielbasa, cole slaw, and a potato casserole or macaroni casserole. I'm not a real fan of much of it except the potitza bread. My cousins and I always used to joke that when the old people get really old, we'll just make them hotdogs and say, "Here's your kielbasa." Then we'll all eat filet minon.

6. My great aunt is one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE PEOPLE. She is an amazing woman. She'll be 93 on Friday. She was a model in the 30's & 40's. She is one of the happiest persons I've ever known. She loves everyone and always makes people feel good. She is fun to be with and she hates to clean. (Yes, that's where I got my "cleaning hate" gene.) And how many times can I say "she" before I drive someone besides myself crazy?

7. I lost my patience. And I can't find it. I know it's here somewhere. But it's been gone for a while and I'm getting a little concerned. My kids haven't been able to help me find it. Same deal with my husband. But I better find it soon. If you know where it is, please tell me. I really need it back. I think Matt & the kids want me to get it back, too.

Now.....

Trunk-or-Treat, Shrek, and the Florida Gators - What do they all have in common?

Nothing - I just needed a title. ;)

We had our trunk-or-treat tonight. Here are the kids (We don't go all out with costumes. I try, but my kids like being the same two or three things over and over again. Jessica really wanted to wear that outfit, so I told her she could be a gypsy. She kept asking me all night, "What am I again, Mom?"):


And me (I think my mom wore this outfit in the early 70's):


Baby Shrek bungee jumping (Don't ask me why I'm posting these on my blog. Even I don't know.):






And how could I not mention the KILLING Florida served up to Kentucky? Sorry to any Kentucky fans. Go Gators!

A Diet Pepsi and a Maple Bar - The Breakfast of Champions

Okay....KIDDING! I actually had my usual for breakfast. I'm kind of freaky about health, now. I think it comes with getting closer to 40. So every day I eat eggs and oatmeal for breakfast.

I am eating a maple bar with a Diet Pepsi right now, though - they're just a snack. Like that makes it healthier. It does help, though, that I spent an hour on the recumbent bike yesterday, so my butt and my hamstrings are killing me today. I always feel more excited about snacking on junk if my muscles are sore. Not sure where the logic in that is, but I'll roll with it.

I have a theory. Actually, I have lots of theories. But the theory I was thinking of is the one about what kind of day you're destined to have when you have a Diet Pepsi for breakfast. And since I eat the same thing for breakfast every day, I would count having a Diet Pepsi for breakfast if I had one before noon.

The day didn't start off well. It may be a "3 Diet Pepsi's" day, or maybe more. I really do try to limit my intake because I've noticed in the last year that I really start to swell when I drink soda.

On to a different topic, but I swear it ties in...... We got a dog yesterday. I'm not sure she's staying. She's a toy eskimo/chihuahua, so she looks like a mix between a coyote and a chihuahua. She's not cute. But she's really sweet. And very obedient.

And then she PEED on me this morning!!!!! I had just taken her outside to go to the bathroom, but apparently she wasn't done. I was so annoyed.

Matt's allergic to dogs, so the breeder that we adopted her from has agreed to give us a weekend trial to see if he has a problem with this dog. We're adopting a puppy from her in January - a wolf/malamute. That dog will primarily be an outside dog. But the little one we have now would be inside and I'm not sure getting a 2 year old dog is working. It's harder to train an older dog. And she's never worn a collar, so she hates that.

Anyhoo - I'm trying to adjust to the dog. But back to my morning - and the reason for my Diet Pepsi at 10 a.m. Tonight is the trunk or treat church activity. Primary is in charge of one of the booths, so I need to get the prizes for that. And Matt got an assignment to bring chili, so I had to run to the store this morning and get all the stuff and then make the chili so it can cook in the crockpot. (I have this pride thing when it comes to my chili - I have to make an effort because once, a long time ago, I won the chili cookoff. I still have the little plastic trophy with the sticker on it, announcing me the winner. Otherwise, I would have bought canned chili and just claimed it.)

So basically, I got up, took the dog outside, got peed on (after we came back inside), did the dishes, made my breakfast, ran to the store (with the kids), made chili, and now I'm drinking my Diet Pepsi and writing in my blog. I guess I should have picked up the candy for prizes today when I was at the store, but you know how it is when you have 3 kids with you at the store. You always forget something.

OH! I almost forgot to include a whining, crying child in my sob story. My 4 year old is now doing the fake wail. Earlier it was just whining, but now it's that "The world is coming to an end! Oh, poor me! Poor me! Waaaaaa!" fake cry. All because she has to clean her room. ANOTHER reason I'm drinking a Diet Pepsi before noon.

You'd think I was addicted to Diet Pepsi. I'm not. I just drink it to fight headaches. And this morning I was fighting one off early. :)

Caught in the crossfire

Jessica found an old journal that we had started to keep and never finished. It was intended to hold all the stories of note about Wyatt.

Wyatt was two and a half. The first entry was this:

A couple weeks ago, Wyatt was throwing toys at Jessica in the playroom. I asked him not to throw things at Jessica anymore. He said he wouldn't. Then, a minute later, he was throwing things at Jessica again. I said, "Wyatt, I said not to throw things at Jessica anymore." He said, "I know. She's caught in the crossfire."

I just don't know where he gets it!

The Flip Off

So I'm wasting a little time this morning. I don't count reading blogs and doing a little blogging of my own wasting time. I DO, however, count when I'm looking around for nothing in particular because I don't want to get my butt up out of my seat and get in the shower. So, YES, I was wasting a little time this morning when I heard my kids talking and laughing, "Now let me flip YOU off." "NO! THIS is how you flip someone off." "Here's a BETTER flip off!"

The other night I was out on a corner with "Yes on Prop 8" signs. We got a few flip offs, F-words, and other curses, so my first thought was, "WHAT are they saying???"

So I look over (YES they were in the same room with me, but I can COMPLETELY block them out when I want to) and they were physically flipping each other off the couch, instructing each other on how to improve "THE FLIPOFF".

...off to the shower now.

It's either blog or do the dishes.... three guesses on what I picked

Okay. So I know the dishes will still be there when I'm done, but I've never claimed that I didn't love to procrastinate. When I was young, my parents considered the verb a bad word. I've come to see it as "give me a little pressure and I'll perform better". I never could sell my parents on the concept. They always disagreed with me.

Kind of like my 10th grade English teacher. We had to write these essays once a week on the reading assignment. There was one week when I hadn't read the assignment, so I wrote an essay on why we should be able to write an essay on the assigned reading or make up our own topic and be graded on our content and grammatical quality. I got an F on that essay, even though it was written exceptionally well. He didn't like my concept, either.

Not sure where I'm going with all this. But I got out of doing the dishes for a good half hour. (I had a phone call in there, too.)

Circle, circle, dot, dot

This is too cute! Found it on Della Hill's site.

Mmmmm......CHOCOLATE!!!!!

I'VE BEEN TAGGED!


This is a pic of Savannah on her 4th (LOL!) birthday. Savannah inherited the chocolate lover gene. Hers is strongly pronounced, like my mother's. So I can absolutely, without a doubt, GUARANTEE that "Mmmmm....CHOCOLATE!!!!" is exactly what she is thinking in this picture. Who cares about wishes when you have chocolate???

Now, I am tagging:
Melissa
Charlyce
Leslie
and anyone who wants to keep this going

The deal is that you have to go to your files and post the fourth picture in the fourth file and explain it. Then tag four more people. Good luck!

Yep, it's scary.... but 'tis the season

So my mom was here - helping me get organized. We were cleaning out drawers and I found this - my BYU ID from 1988.

What do you think of the rockin' hair style?

Lightbulb Moments

Last night we went to the adult session of Stake Conference. One of the speakers, the mission president's wife, talked about when her four oldest children were at home, the oldest was 5 or 6. She talked about how she wasn't really enjoying motherhood. She loved her kids, but just felt overwhelmed.

It was so nice to hear someone else talk about this. I've heard women talk about feeling overwhelmed before, but it never hit me until last night that the overwhelming feeling could be for things other than just taking care of our children, that it was emotionally and spiritually overwhelming. At least, that's what I got from her talk.

Sometimes it seems like it should be so easy. I have three kids, they're all in school, and life isn't as demanding as it was when I had two in diapers and three at home at the same time.

It's so nice to have a lightbulb moment, when someone says something and I think, "Ahhh! Finally an explanation of how I feel!"

I often feel very overwhelmed with the responsibility of teaching my children. I am so afraid of what I might do wrong or mess up. It was so comforting to know I'm not the only one feeling so overwhelmed about those things.

I know others may have gotten something else from her talk, but this is what really hit me. And it was really what I needed to hear. When I talked to my husband about it, I told him it was like if he suddenly became CEO of his company. He would feel overwhelmed and not really know what to do.

I think anyone can clean a house, and anyone can take care of children, but it takes a really special and spiritually in-tune woman to be a mom who can teach her children well and raise them to be righteous individuals. What an overwhelming commitment!

The Blog Bug...

bit me in the butt and then circled around and exploded in my face!

Today is a homeschool day.

Rule #1 (that I apparently forgot or completely ignored): NEVER start playing with your blog when there's work to be done.

NOTHING has gotten done yet today. Okay, so it's only 9 a.m. But still. Usually I'm showered and ready to go at this point. And instead of that, my kids are watching TV!

Rule #2: When you change your blog and you don't really like it, but you have other things to do, turn off your computer and RUN! AS FAST AS YOU CAN! It will still be there to fix when you get back.

Rule #3: Follow rules 1 & 2.

Okay, fine!

I've been tagged - by a few people now!

I have to answer each of the questions below with one word answers and only one word.

1. Where is your cell phone? chair
2. Where is your significant other? work
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? helpful
5. Your father? retired
6. Your favorite thing? chocolate
7. Your dream last night? workout
8. Your dream/goal? supermom
9. The room you're in? family
10. Your hobby? baking
11. Your fear? failure
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
13. Where were you last night? meeting
14. What you're not? OCD
15. One of your wish-list items? backyard
16. Where you grew up? Redlands
17. The last thing you did? drink
18. What are you wearing? jeans
19. Your TV? off
20. Your pet? what?
21. Your computer? hot
22. Your mood? tired
23. Missing someone? nah
24. Your car? dirty
25. Something you're not wearing? shorts
26. Favorite store? depends
27. Your summer? busy
28. Love someone? yes
29. Your favorite color? green
30. When is the last time you laughed? earlier
31. When is the last time you cried? yesterday

Now, tag seven (7) people.

Thank goodness I'm done!!!!!! Now I'm not looking at my list again because I know most of my answers would change. LOL!

A letter from Wyatt to Mom and Dad

The other night, Wyatt left this note outside his door after he went to bed. I have deciphered it below because Wyatt may be very smart, but he couldn't care less about penmanship. And apparently, he didn't care much about spelling when he wrote this, either.


Here's what it says:

To Mom & Dad

Do I have to go to sleep before Savannah, a 4 year old??
Slap in my face 8 times and bu-hu. (yes, that’s my 9 year old’s misspelling of boo hoo)
Cryed (yes, that’s another misspelling) before bed I did. I’m Yoda!
That did not cheer Wyatt up. I feel tiny.

From, Wyatt


Then…


Getting to (yes, another misspelling) skinny!
That still did not cheer me up!
Bu-hu-hu-bu-wa-hah-wah-ha
I cryed (yes, yet another misspelling) again.

AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!

Why does changing your blog background have to be such a hassle?????

Every now and then, when I'm making changes, I mess something up. This time, I lost all my friends' blog links. I can't remember everyone's site addresses, so I hope I can find everyone again.

What a mess!!!!

Church Broadcast on Prop 8

Here are some video excerpts from the broadcast the other night:


And here's the link to the article:

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/church-readies-members-on-proposition-8

New Blog Supporting Prop 8

I just created a blog in support of Prop 8. Please check it out and feel free to forward the link to anyone you know who might be interested. I'm trying to include as much information as possible. I'll continue to update it. My goal is to keep it more religiously neutral. I have many friends who are not Mormon, so I wanted to make sure I addressed everyone's concerns, and to make sure no one feels excluded.

Your feedback is appreciated. If you think I can add anything that would better support Proposition 8 and support families, please let me know.

Thanks so much!

Here's the link: http://protectingfreedomsprotectingfamilies.blogspot.com/

The Energizer Bunny visited my house!

That's what my sister and I call my mom. She helped Savannah clean her room. Savannah was so excited, she wanted me to take a picture.


Notice the neat stack of towels in the hall closet. My mom barely stopped the whole time she was here. She came on Wednesday and doesn't leave until tomorrow.


I'd lend her out, but I still have more to be done at my house. :)

Twilight

Okay, so I started reading the books and I've finished the first two. Matt asked me to take a break before I read the next one. I kind of can't get anything done when I'm reading them.

I'm really excited for the movie. It's out November 21st. Shall we plan a girls night? It's the week before Thanksgiving.