the back door

this weekend i read a book. i love to read fiction books and get lost in someone else's world for awhile. i had gone to the library and randomly picked a book off the new christian fiction shelf. it was called the perfect life and well, since that is what i have, i decided it sounded good! okay....well...the title intrigued me. what i found was a book that was just okay in it's actual writing, but the truth in the story really spoke to me. basically it was about a woman who had the perfect husband, perfect daughters, and overall perfect home life. until in one moment it all falls apart. now the really interesting thing here is that it didn't need to fall apart - it just became flawed. and that flaw sent her in a downward spiral. she could no longer hold to her perfect image. so this got me thinking.....do i create the perfect world? am i so focused on what everybody thinks about me that i don't allow myself to be real? it goes back to the whole conversation we

ten years ago today i made a phone call that changed my life. i remember going to the coffee shop i worked at that friday evening bored out of my mind in hopes of talking my few friends at the time into hanging out with me. unfortunately they had other plans. the one friend was giving me a list of people to call and of course i had excuses for all of it, or they had legitimate plans. now, don't have pity on me here. i did have a small group of friends in town at this time. it just happended to be spring break and most were gone. even my family was gone. but there was one new friend that i couldn't find a reason to not call - except that girls do not call boys!!!!! but that reason didn't win out and i called up this recent friend. it was about 5:15 on a friday evening...here is how the conversation went: recent friend (rf): hello me: hi...this is..... rf: how are you? me: fine...do you have plans tonight? rf: yeah...i was getting together with the guys (brief p

last friday, princess and i headed up to the city to do some dress shopping. i had looked all over town and couldn't find anything in her size. we must have tried on 10 dresses before agreeing on one. i decided that next year i will once again go alone. fast forward a week... we have church pictures tonight so i started picking out clothes to wear. realizing that princess's collection is pretty much limited to pink i dug out her box of spring clothes looking for inspiration. she found me and squealed with delight at the treasures in the box. one by one i pulled out some dresses sent to me by my cousin last fall. princess tried each one on with great enthusiasm. when we found a cute blue one with 3 bunny faces on the bottom she told me that is what she wanted to wear for easter! well....um...okay? so....princess is greatly excited to be wearing her hand-me-down easter dress. and i thought i was doing something special by actually buying her a new dress for easter. tha

a few nights ago around the supper table, hubby announced we were going to have about 9 more kids. i'm not sure where he was going with this, but the kids got very interested. as the conversation went on, the kids decided they would rather live with our doctors family so they could have more siblings and catch frogs at their house. okay?!? well, today princess had her kindergarten physical and told the doctor what they decided. he said that sounded great and finished her exam. no big deal... until after dinner tonight... at the table, princess told daddy that doc said they could come on out. she disappeared. when i went to find her, i found her in her room surrounded by bags filled with her favorite clothes and toys. she was packing!!!!!! i kinda giggled..okay so i laughed and didn't think much of it. i called the doc's wife and told her to get ready. when i went back upstairs she was sitting on daddy's lap just sobbing...i mean SOBBING!!!! he had a friend wa

sitting around the lunch table today princess was quite content eating her pancakes. i don't think she had made one peep. just eating away. while hubby and i were lost in a great discussion, princess held her hand out to me and calmly said, "i just lost my tooth." sure enough, loose tooth number two was now sitting on the table. she quickly got up to find her tooth holder and dropped it right in. then she returned to eating. when she was all done with lunch she carried her tooth holder upstairs and has already placed it under her pillow. she told me it was to make sure she didn't swallow this one too!! love that girl, but she might break the tooth fairy before long:)

mapboy has taken quite an interest in the presidential election. he can tell you more facts than i can and i have actually followed it this time around. a few weeks ago, he was home from school with an ear infection. i was working while he was playing quietly in the family room. i happened to walk by and glance his direction. he had candyland out. i commented it looked like tigger was winning(we have the winnie the pooh version). he was quick to correct to me," mom, that isn't tigger, it is obama!" huh?!?? sure enough, he had made name cards for each character: obama, hillary, mccain, romney, and huckabee. he is 7!!!!! once again, this afternoon he was focused on another great candyland race, election style. this time he threw ron paul into the mix. what in the world? how had he even really heard that name?!?!? last i remember, both paul and hillary were stuck in those swamp parts. maybe he does have some insight. something just isn't right...i should

so a lot has been really working through my mind these days. you know...am i really living the way i'm supposed to? am i doing what God designs for me to be doing? both hubby(okay, mostly hubby) have been trying to focus on getting outside ourselves. or mostly outside our bubble world!! a few weeks ago while he was away for the weekend i called a friend i hadn't seen in ages and went out to dinner. it was wonderful. wonderful to be spontaneous, wonderful to see her, and wonderful to not feel too bogged down i couldn't see her. well, today was a great sunday around here. we went to church and had a decent lunch. the kids played and hubby and i chatted over coffee. it was very relaxing. late in the afternoon we took the kids on a big outing to kmart. they don't ever ask for toys or spend money but they wanted to buy a toy with their money. so we told them what they could spend and off we went. it was kinda fun even. on our way back we commented, for the 5th

i just got a call from my dear friend. she wanted to let me know that it has been way too long since i have posted. funny, we see each other everyday 2 or 3 times and talk on the phone atleast 2 or 3 more. but, i guess she loves to read more about my crazy world. i was shocked as well to see that it had been so long since i posted. i had to really stop and think about that. what have i been doing??? there has been all sorts of motion at our house and i can't think of anything to blog on? that is not me!!! but the past month for me has been one of great hurt in my life and i think as it all kind of exploded this past week to 10 days i just felt drained. that drain is what led to a lack of entering my blogging world. there are really very few times in my life that i can remember deep hurt. the first hurt i really can think of was the loss of a dear friend in high school. it was tragic, shocking, and at 17 completely impossible to understand. i grieved for a long time and wa

a few weeks ago princess announced her tooth wiggled!! WHAT??? you are only five. but sure enough her lower front tooth was quite wiggly. for a couple of days she would not eat much, but couldn't wait for it to come out. well, frankly, i'd forgotten about and i think she had, too. yesterday, hubby and i had to spend the day in indy. my dear friend was a willing spirit and took my kids for the day. not too bad. the girls had preschool and of course would play but then she had to get mapboy plus her 4 other kids and have them all home doing homework, feed them all, then drop my 2 off at my sister-in-laws! she is a good friend:) anyways...hubby and i were just pulling into arby's on our way home when my cell phone rings. i see it is dear friend and figure she was calling to tell me the kids were great and at their aunts. well she did tell me that. then she asked: "um...did princess have her tooth this morning?" huh!?? i tell her i'm pretty sure she

so for the past 2 weeks i've heard my dear friend say she had several ideas on what to blog about. the fact that she is now addicted to coffee - i think she credits that addiction to me, i don't know why! the fact that they have bugs in the toy room, the garage door broke and interesting people showed up to fix it, the list goes on.... she has lots to offer to the blogging world so i thought maybe this gentle push would send her over the edge!!!! come on friend......hop in to cyperspace with us!!!!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i posted a few days ago that we were having a teacher in-service this week. well, mapboy came home from school with a note saying that in-service had been cancelled and they would go all day. woo hoo!!!!! while checking the local news on line this weekend i stumbled across the article on said in-service. i'm most impressed that our assistant superintendant is quoted as saying something to the effect that "while it won't count as a make-up day we think it will prove beneficial to have the students actually attend school for a full day. " gee, ya think??!?!!? i'm trying to figure out who thought of that. was it the teachers who are tired of having to redo their lesson plans, or don't really want to go to school until mid-june. or was it really those administrators we pay so well? i mean, does it take a genius to figure out our kids should actually go to school? either way, i'm impressed and on this one they made the right call!! now maybe we are on th