Smells like...

We were on our way to San Antonio.
I had made up a basket of the kids' less annoying/favorite small toys to take on the road with us.
One of those toys happened to be a Buzz Lightyear and Woody car that I bought at the JBF sale about a month ago.

Sidenote: At the JBF sale, local people consign their items and share a cut with the organization. I had an armful of goodies and noticed that all the items I was going to buy had Consigner #86 marked on them. By the time I got to checkout, I realized that #86 belonged to none other than La!! I guess we could have skipped the middle man and just traded junk... ;)

Anyway, J. was playing with his Toy Story racecar and stopped and said,"Hey, this toy smells like John David's house."
I said, "Nuh-uh, Lemme smell it."
Then little A. requested a sniff.
She exclaimed, "It's Julia!!!"
It really DID smell like John David's house, and Julia's house, and Lori's house.
The Oh-so-familiar smell was wonderful. It made me happy at first, then sad.
That plastic toy caused a rush of unexpected emotions to enter our van.
I so miss that smell. I am sure Lori misses it too.
I have cried what feels like silly tears over that racecar. I have even snorted the car a few more times since then. My hearts so aches to see her.
Many have tried to duplicate the heavenly smell of 'home' but it belongs to La.

For Christmas, La, would you sign me up for one of those monthly deliveries?
Not a wreath, or the cookies of the month.
Would you send me 'the smell' - I miss the beautiful smell of YOU!
Have a Happy time with your family!
I love you!

Public restrooms.

Worse than the filth,
Far worse than other people's germs,
Worse than your children touching every square inch of the dernd pot before you can get away from them...
I have, in my late 20's, discovered the absolute worst reality of public restrooms.
I was washing my hands in a public restroom and I turned to the infamous blowy thing to dry them - this is where my disgust with public restrooms turned to horror.
The skin on my not-so-taught hands rippled like an ocean of skin when I slid them underneath the blowy thing!!
How horrifying!

From this point on, if you smell a slightly odd scent on me, you can bet it will be the generous slathering of wrinkle cream I applied just before leaving my house.
This marks a new day for me.
Goodbye youth, goodbye...

Sea World.

I was hoping to get the opportunity to post today, if for no other reason than to spare you all the annoyance of seeing a mythical creature each time my page popped up...
I guess there is so much going on that I have nothing to say. Nothing of life-changing value anyway.
Thanks to those of you who helped with crystal's baby shower. And thanks to those who got to come, it was good to see you. And if you couldn't come but really wanted to - thanks to you as well. :)
It was a darling shower. All the girls on the decor team did a fabulous job. (I can say that because I had nothing to do with THAT part of the shower.)
___________________________________________
We're going to take the kids to Sea World San Antonio this weekend. I am glad to get to use the tickets we already bought. The first time we went - about 30 minutes after we bought our tickets, the park was shut down due to bad weather.
So here's round 2.
I am excited!

Moments of note:

Vacation begins tomorrow at 2pm.
That is synonymous with
HAL-LE-LU-JAH!



Addendum:

Frolicking Unicorn.

tidbits.

• Open enrollment for Chris' insurance ended today. I went through the options. None were financially do-able for us. I regret to tell you that I am going to go without health insurance for another year. The only way around that is if I get a full-time job with benefits before next November. That would mean not being a part-time stay-at-home mom. The whole situation really presents itself as lose/lose right now. So for now, Lord, shield me.
• My easy-going daughter seems to think that bedtime is a negotiable event.
• I began to research Cowboys/Packers tickets at Ticketmaster two nights ago. The cheapest ones were over $300. The upper end tickets were essentially a middle income family of 4's tax return per ticket. My source told me that our family group that was going together was intact and tickets were secured at under $100. My gut told me something different. I began to feel uneasy about the potential that my husband's last minute family may have waited til the last minute to buy tickets. They have. We will not be going to the Cowboys game as a result. I am absolutely so bummed out about it that there are no words. The only words I have are: If we cannot afford health insurance, we probably cannot afford NFL tickets. Well put.
• I wanted to stay at home so badly on Wednesday night from church that it practically took a tractor beam to get me in the pew. I am glad I went, but now I have to deal with something. God revealed to me what currently is my main stumbling block on Wednesday night. It is a difficult thing to verbalize but it is something that I have been warring with for a long time. John Reynolds spoke so succinctly. It was thought-provoking. It was what I needed to hear. So once again, I need you Lord. Please help me be the me You placed me here to be.
• Not prime reading tonight. Just real, grown-up stuff.

Coughed up an Alligator today.

So it's over.
What? You ask.
This day.
I guess deep down I have been dreading this day for quite some time.
We had our Thanksgiving Feast today.
It entails, in a few words, the purpose for my job.

1. Put on a program for the parents.
2. Include singing and dancing.
3. Make it entertaining and organized.
4. Use only 3, 4, and 5-year olds.
5. 85 of them, to be exact.
6. Synchronized.

Ultimately, I feel like the piper leading the lemmings out to sea.

The kids do whatever they are gonna do. Some sing. Some roam. The parents love it because it is their 'baby.' And I get to keep my job. Crisis averted.

__________________________________________

The REAL thing that has been weighing on me is my mom's surgery. She had a cyst removed from her hand/wrist today. It was day surgery and proved not to be a very big deal.

But I worry.

So that is over. We can all breathe a sigh of relief because it looked as though it was a harmless cyst.

Thank you Jesus!

Day 5 and counting.

ok.
seriously.
the eye twitch.
day 5. yes, five of 'em.
i thought it was gone.
not so.
it did stop for a few hours this evening, but has since returned.

my coworker was talking to me today.
she stopped mid-sentence and said, "that's just creepy."
i said, "what?"
she said, "your eye is jumping all around."
i shrugged, "oh...yeah..."

the best part?
i hadn't mentioned it before that.
it is apparently just that noticeable.

aaaaaaaaaarrrrrggghggghhhhh!
make it go away!!

The Mystery of Man.

I was afforded the extreme pleasure of getting to watch my son interact with his peers at playtime yesterday.
He is so great. He's 4, so his social prowess is, well, awkward at best.
I loved it though - such insight -from the vantage point of a fly on the wall.
He's a thinker. An impulsive thinker. An oxy-moron to some, but for him, it just works...

He was building something wonderful with Tinker Toys.
I could tell just by the intermittent giggle mingled with that rascally smile that he was drawing up some grand plans for his build.
It was huge.
It was at least 6 feet long.
It had many barrels and gears.
I could see the cogs turning in his head as he unravelled his devious plan...
He kept lodging one long skinny stick into a slot only to decide that it wouldn't do, then quickly switched it out for a longer one, to match the rest.
So meticulous.

He was just about finished with his fabled contraption, when a fellow schemer and builder turned his attention to what J. was assembling and admired it.
Eyes big, they both heaved this beast of a machine up off the floor.
It took two of them it was so enormous.

I had watched the whole mystery unfold without saying a word,
but I couldn't take it anymore....
I HAD to know...

I said, "Hey sweet doll, what are you building there?"
It was magnificent, even to an adult.
I was expecting a title fitting this extravagant machine, in all its complexity-
Like a krypton beam or something...

He half-snorted his response.
"It's a snot rocket! heheehehe!"
Then he raised it up and aimed it at me.
This was followed by the snot/spit shower of a lifetime as he demonstrated how this fanciful beast works...

How very boy!
Who could be mad after stepping into the baffling mind of man and walking away relatively unscathed?
After all, I practically begged him to shoot me with it, right?

Sweet me.

I like to spend a little time alone with each one of my kids at bedtime.
Talking about their day and just telling them sweet things.
"I'm so proud of you."
"I love the person God made when He made you."
Stuff like that.
I was finishing up with A. while Chris was talking with J. - I was beginning to walk out of A's room and she said, "Is daddy gonna sweet me now?"
How cute is that?!?!
I just love the way their little minds work!

Afternoon Playdate.

I am going to bite the bullet.
Playdate at my house on Tuesday.
Maybe starting around 2:30 or so.
That way we could be wrapping it up around 5-ish when most daddies are getting off work.
Let me know if you think you'll be coming. I may plan an art activity or something...