But I just cleaned, honest!

So every day I clean my house. At least some part of my house, anyway. I usually spend most of the morning picking up toys and putting away clothes. Mondays are my laundry day. I try to get as much laundry done on Mondays as possible so that my husband doesn't have as much to do the rest of the week. (My amazing hubby does random loads of laundry throughout the week while I try to do the bulk on Mondays) Today I just wanted to sit on the floor and play with the baby, but I did my work like the dutiful Mommy I am.
But, the baby wanted to play...with everything I had just put away. She toddled behind me all day dragging back out everything I had so carefully put back in it's respective closet, bucket, basket or bin. By the end of the day, when one of my students came over, I had to stand at my door and say, "I've been cleaning all day, honest."
But you know it made me stop and think. How often do we do that to God? We have a revival or crusade (Ronnie Hill was just at our church) or a particularly powerful service or choir special and we just really put our all out there for God. "Fix me, Lord," we say. "I'm letting go and I'm living the life you want for me. Clean my house and make me a vessel for You, an instrument for Your purposes." Then we watch while He cleans the cobwebs out of our hearts and picks up the "issues" we mess with, while He takes out the sin-trash and gets things ready for Him to fully occupy our hearts and lives. And what do we do? We toddle behind Him and randomly pick things back out. We drag out those hurt feelings so we can cry over them. We pull down the blocks of poor time management and scatter them across the floor of our hearts. We get out the dirty clothes of bitterness and grief and we mess around in the trash to pull out that gossip wrapper or the empty package of pride so we can play with them all again. Then we have nowhere to "play" anymore because everything is a mess and we go on a hunt for something else to do/feel.
Then we wonder why things got messy again. And He looks at us and says, "I just cleaned you out, honest. You're the one who won't leave it alone." 
"Well, Lord, this time I am leaving it be. You've cleaned it and I'll leave things where they are supposed to be. You cleaned out the mess and gave me the talent You wanted me to play with and I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna play with the gifts You gave me and let You decide when and where I will use them. And while I'm at it, I think I might like to take advantage of some of that perfect peace You give too."
Gonna crawl up in Daddy's Lap and take a little Sabbath Rest. G'night.

Did we move to Florida when I wasn't looking?

So, Bill went to take the girls out to the pool this afternoon while I stayed inside with the baby. I needed something out of the car and was heading outside when all of a sudden it started to POUR DOWN RAINING!!! Not a gentle late summer rain, but a full on gully-washing, tree-blowing down pour. I ran to the back garage door to find Kylie sobbing while trying to get her shoes on with the rain drenching her. I ran outside, snatched her up, carried her inside, ran back out for the towels and her other shoe, back inside again and out one more time to get Bailey inside. I was soaked! I mean, water dripping down in my eyes, hair plastered to my head, clothes dripping soaked! Here's the kicker, by the time we got in the house and I was putting on dry clothes...you guessed it...the rain stopped and the sun came out. It was JUST LIKE being in Florida!
I think God has a warped sense of humor too!

They're only 12!!!!

WARNING: CONTENT MAY BE CONTROVERSIAL TO THOSE WITH LIBERAL VIEWPOINTS. I AM A CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN AND AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST FOR IT IS THE POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION TO ALL WHO BELIEVE!!!!!!! IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY THIS STAND, PLEASE KEEP YOUR COMMENTS TO YOURSELF. MY BLOG, MY CHALK, MY MARBLES, MY RULES!





I am in a bit of a tither this week. Some of my dear friends are struggling with our local school system about reading material for middle schoolers. I guess it's a sign that I'm getting old. When I was in school hmm...hmm...teen years ago, we read literature in literature class. We had books that had literary value, classics. Books like To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Fountainhead, Jane Eyre, Hamlet, The Scarlet Letter, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the like. Yes, our school did assign books like The Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men and 1984, but the parents had the right to have their child opt out if they found it objectionable. They had this right without negative repercussions from the school systems. My parents made that decision for me. I was not permitted to read The Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, 1984 or Lord of the Flies when I was in high school. My parents would rather I not read the coarse language or gratuitous sex that was in these books. They WANTED me innocent of such things. And you know what? It didn't hurt me any that I didn't read them. Did I eventually read them? Yes, when I was an adult and had a clearly established set of values and morals. THESE CHILDREN ARE 11, 12, 13 YEARS OLD!!!!!!!
And they were told that if they had a problem with the content of 1984, then it was because they were immature. Well, duh!!!!! Of course they are immature!!! They are CHILDREN!!!!!!!! They are not supposed to have the maturity of an adult to deal with these things. And for the teacher to say that she is going to count it against them in their final grade if they do not read some of these books (and let's face it, there really isn't that much literary value The Outsiders either) is absolutely ludicrous!!!!!!!

Here is the REAL literary value...the REAL lesson...the REAL truth and the REAL reality...


Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children: and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. But FORNICATION, and ALL UNCLEANNESS, or COVETOUSNESS, let it NOT be once named among you, as becometh saints; neither FILTHINESS, nor FOOLISH TALKING, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For THIS YE KNOW, that NO WHOREMONGER, nor UNCLEAN PERSON, nor COVETOUS MAN, who is an IDOLATER, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. LET NO MAN DECEIVE YOU WITH VAIN WORDS: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. BE NOT YE THEREFORE PARTAKERS WITH THEM. For ye were sometimes darkness; but NOW ARE YE LIGHT IN THE LORD: WALK AS CHILDREN OF LIGHT: (for the fruit of the Spririt is in ALL GOODNESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS AND TRUTH;) proving WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE UNTO THE LORD. And HAVE NO FELLOWSHIP WITH THE UNFRUITFUL WORKS OF DARKNESS, BUT RATHER REPROVE THEM. For it a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret...See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, BECAUSE THE DAYS ARE EVIL.
Ephesians 5:1-12, 15, 16 (emphasis mine)

I honor those parents who are standing for truth. I honor those students who went directly to their parents and said, "Mom, this is wrong. This is not the way we believe." I honor those parents who are sticking together and standing up for what is right. It is you who pave the way for my young children who will have much worse to deal with in 6-10 years. You are the ones who are making a way for us to be able to stand when it is our turn. It is your testimony that I will look back on when I have this fight myself and it will be because of your commitment to what is right that I will be able to not back down when my turn comes. Keep up the fight and keep the faith. Those who come behind you are blessed by your example!!!!

Miss Clairol, where art thou???

So, I'm sitting in the car wondering how in the world I'm gonna get Miss Cranky Pants out of her car seat without waking her when I look in the rear view mirror and think, hey...what's that shiny thing in my hair? So I pull on it and it's attached. Yep, you guessed it...it was my own hair. Two inches of shiny gray with a brown end. And here all this time I thought when my roots grew out, they'd just be a different shade of brown. Not so!
It's not that I'm a stranger to gray hair. Like my dad, I've had it since I was a teen, but then I was blonde and it was really hard to find. Three babies and eighteen years of who knows what kind of free radicals later, I really have no idea what my natural hair color actually is. When I was in my twenties, I was told at an expensive salon that they had clients who paid hundreds of dollars for those shades of blonde, gold and red in that perfect balance. What happened to THAT hair?
And whatever happened to that perfectly coiffed chic who used to be able to style her hair in multiple ways with nothing more than a clip, fingers and mousse? Now it takes three brushes, a hair dryer, a pick, two combs, a flat iron, a curling iron and eight different styling products that I can't even pronounce to get...straight hair that flies everywhere and lays flat on my head. Well, flat except for that weird cowlick in the back of my hair at my neckline that makes one side look shorter than the other. But, hey, as I was told, "assymetrical bobs are still all the rage this fall." But I LIKE symmetry. I like for both sides of my hair to look like they belong on the same head. I LIKE my hair to be one color with tones and shades instead of seven different colors that make me look like a bad hair academy experiment!
So I guess I'm off to Wal-Mart this afternoon to stand in front of the hair color aisle and contemplate between "Rich Mohogany" and "Bountiful Brunette."  And since I already have too many "bountiful" parts, maybe I'll go for rich this time...

New to Blogging

So my dear sweet friend who is addicted to blogging told me tonight that I needed a blog. Apparently my life is amusing enough and occasionally inspiring enough to warrant being read. I have to confess that my vanity has always prevented me from starting a blog. What if no one reads it? What if people read it and think it/I is/am stupid? What if I just don't care?! So I decided to take her advice and start a blog. So here you will read my thoughts and the things that happen in my home.
Oh, wait, who am I? I am a wife, mother, homemaker, teacher, servant of God and all around goof ball. I sing in the choir at church, teach VBS every year and direct the drama productions at our church. I am wife to an amazing and wildly funny husband (we just celebrated our Fifteenth Anniversary...go us!) and the mother to three EXTREME DRAMA QUEENS!!! I am mother to a infant/toddler, a pre-schooler and a second grader. They are all girls, all beautiful and all very funny. Most of my stuff will be about them and their antics. The homemaker part I pretty much stink at unless I am decorating for a holiday or party. My house is cluttered and only fairly clean. You can eat off my kitchen floors...believe me, I know this for a fact because my one-year-old does it often. There is always food on the floor. Even right after I sweep...what's up with that? Although after the june-bug eating incident, D is much more cautious about what she eats off the floor. I think she has enforced a strict self rule of "no eating anything with legs" but other than that, pretty much everything else is fair game.
So, this is me and this is my blog. Don't know how often I will post, but probably a lot because apparently I like it when total strangers know all my personal business.
So until next time....