Yard Sale Mistakes I've Made

I loooove a yard sale.  I rarely go to them, but I often think fondly of them when rising from my bed on Saturday morning...the treasures, bargain-basement-priced treasures: I really should go.

Though I don't go to many yard sales, I host a yard sale almost annually.  And I've learned a few things, most of them the hard way.

Sidenote:  FAVORITE YARD SALE MEMORY:
When a little boy unzipped his pants and almost peed on several items for sale until his dad noticed and shifted his aim at the last moment.  I was glad nothing took a direct hit.

Mistake #1

Not advertising.  

One year's yard sale was a particularly half-hearted effort.  I threw up a few signs at key intersections close to our house, but they shriveled up after one night and you couldn't read them.  I sat outside for three hours that Saturday, and two people stopped by.

 If you are going to have a yard sale, 1) advertise on Craigslist and 2) make decent signs with large letters, and put them up on Thursday or Friday.  Use pizza boxes or foam board, not poster paper. 

If you are too cheap to advertise in the newspaper, like me, these two advertising avenues are critical.  Having said that, I have plenty of yard sale friends who just drive around and stop if they happen to see a yard sale in progress.  BUT I personally have to map it all out and print out directions from place to place.  It keeps me sane.  I am not free enough in my spirit to wander aimlessly early on a Saturday morning.

Yardsalequeen.com has some classic examples of bad signs.   She also has a lot of helpful tips.


Good idea#1
Have the yard sale Friday afternoon AND Saturday morning.

This may sound like overkill, but we tried it last year and sold a bunch of the big ticket items Friday afternoon.  If you are going to go through the time and effort of assembling, sorting, and pricing your unwanted items, you may as well go all out for the actual yard sale.

Mistake #2

Putting Rings Where They Could Get Stolen...They Will.

I put out my rings on the far side of the driveway.  They were a pretty easy target.  If you have something that you might still want to hang on to after the yard sale, or something relatively valuable, showcase it on the table where you are working or directly in your line of sight.  I was sad about those rings.

Good idea #2

Keep your money in an apron or fanny pack.

 Hopefully, you will have a lot of money.  Keep it on your body.  I like to wear those tool aprons like you see at Lowe's or Home Depot.

Mistake #3

Never changing your prices.

 My motto is "Someone is Paying Me to Haul Away My Unwanted Stuff."  Keep this at the forefront of your mind.  I price stuff pretty cheap initially, and then Saturday for the last hour I send the kids out with posters that say, "Everything Half Off."  At the end of the day, I don't want any stuff leftover. 

Be willing to bargain with folks.  If you never come down on your prices, you end up stuck (again) with that item that has not left your storage room in five years.  Having said that, price your stuff with some cushion built in, so that when someone wants to haggle, you can drop it down a little and still make what you wanted.  I generally price stuff at about a third of what I've paid; I'll price it at half if it is a desirable item in really good condition. 

You can always go down on price, but you can't come up.

Good idea #3

Let the kids sell something.

I don't give the kids money that we make from selling their clothes, but I let them sell their own toys.  One time I even let my youngest price his own toys, and he sold someone a GameBoy for $5.  Part of me was horrified because I thought he could have gotten more, and part of me was glad because it didn't look like the folks that bought it for their little girl could have afforded much more.  

I used to make cookies and let the kids sell those, but people just bought them to be nice to the kids.  We found out last year that drinks sell better, but even then I usually just break even.  This year I'm thinking of setting out a big water container and coffee maker with cups and just leaving a tip jar.

Mistake #4

Not putting something out because you are sure it won't sell.

Listen, the human mind is a wonderful and amazing thing, and you can't know that Aunt Gina's busted-up watering can might make the perfect lawn ornament for someone.  Put a price on everything, even things that you think no one would ever want.  I am always surprised at what folks will buy.  

Last year we put out an old kerosene heater that was broken and missing pieces.  Several people asked about it, one couple finally bought it, and another person came back later just to see if it was still there!  Amazing.

Potential Good Idea #4

Craigslist/Facebook Pre-Yard Sale Sale

A few things we're selling this year are on the nice-ish side, so I thought I would try listing those items and their prices individually before the yard sale on my Facebook page and on the Craigslist ad for the yard sale.  I can't decide if this is a good idea or not; it may be a hassle.  

Two more weeks until D-Day!  I usually use the money we make for home stuff that isn't in the budget or kids' clothes.  It's not a ton, but every little bit helps. Plus, you get to meet people in your neighborhood and you get rid of things you didn't need.  Worth the effort, I'd say.

Here's how Justin and Will do yard sales. They think it's worth my effort, too.

God Sometimes Moves Through Insulated Tumblers

I checked my email before heading out for church last Sunday morning.  It's like a nervous tic with me; I have a hard time walking by the computer without hitting the gmail button.

Amidst the groupons, ebates, and helpful tips from Martha Stewart in my inbox was an etsy convo.  I opened a shop on etsy a couple months ago...what, you would like to visit it?  Just click through any of the items in my etsy mini on the right.

A potential customer wanted to know if I could put monograms on fifteen insulated tumblers.  I was super-excited. Fifteen! I've never had that big of an order, and I was excited!

BUT it was Sunday, and I had already made up my mind not to work on Sunday. So I didn't respond to her email, and hoped she'd still be interested in placing an order when I got in touch with her on Monday.

Monday morning after I took the kids to school, I drove to three different stores, gathering up the supplies I would need to fill her order.  I was home by 9:30 a.m., and I messaged her back to say I could set up a custom listing for her.  She wrote back to say she really liked my work, but she had decided to go with someone else.  I wasn't totally surprised, but bummed none the less.  Why did that email have to come on Sunday?  Should I have gone ahead and written her back? 

I mentally shrugged my shoulders.  Oh well, there was nothing I could do about it, and I'm not going to work on Sunday.  I already wonder if some of my Sabbath practices are that God-honoring anyway.  I'm pretty sure that applying vinyl to plastic cups does not come under the "works of mercy and necessity" exclusion clause.

Well, God had a little something up his sleeve, because on Tuesday, I received another etsy convo.  This one was for the same tumbler, but this customer wanted seventeen!  I guess it could have been a coincidence, but it was a remarkable one.  I believe that God was telling me in a crystal clear sort of way not to worry about sales lost in Sabbath observance.

It was a little thing really.  But it meant so much, that God cares about little things that mean something to me..because He cares about me.

Food Matters: 30-Day Nutritional Throwdown & Balding Guys with Glasses

Anybody ever heard of Mark Bittman?

That is a picture of Mark above.  He is the author of one of my favorite cookbooks, How to Cook Everything.  I've blogged about it before here.

The man pictured below is Dr. Tim Keller.  He is the pastor at Redeemer Church in New York City and the author of several awesome books.  He can preach like nobody's business.  (Most of his sermons cost money to download, but  here is a sampling that you can get for free.)

My number one preacher to listen to is, of course, my husband.  All of his sermons are free.

Anyway, Dr. Keller is a side note.  I was just struck by how similar these two fellows look, and how I trust both of their advice implicitly. The above white baldish man with glasses is my nutritional mentor, the below my spiritual (well, he's one of them. Most of them are already in heaven).

My husband is not balding (yet), but he does wear glasses occasionally, so I guess I kinda trust him.

.

Anyway, not too long ago, Mark Bittman wrote another book called Food Matters.  The book was birthed by his realization that as a nation, we are filling up on junky food and it's bad for us and our planet.  It's a clarion call to return to vegetables and minimize our intake of meat and processed foods, and he includes 75 recipes and a two-week meal plan to get you started.  It's like a kinder, gentler, more practical version of Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which says a lot of the same stuff, but makes you feel guiltier.

Here's Michael Pollan, by the way:

OK, Michael Pollan is also white, balding and wears glasses.  But I only have room for so many mentors, and he's too nutritionally dogmatic for me.  We would not be a good team. If Mark Bittman caught me red-handed with a Snickers, he may be disappointed but he'd let it slide; Michael Pollan would probably wag his finger and lecture me about high-fructose corn syrup and industrialized agriculture.

Here's another "by the way":  Michael Pollan was once on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, which I love to listen to on my iPod.  And my favorite, hands-down favorite moment EVER on that show was when Michael Pollan and Paula Poundstone faced-off over her favorite food, Ring-Dings.  You can listen to it here. 

All of this to say that, even though I sided with Paula, Ring-Dings are really not the answer to all of life's problems.

And even though I whole-heartedly agree with Mark Bittman's approach to "sane eating" (as he terms it), my personal food choices do not reflect what I believe to be true nutritionally. Just ask any of my pants.

So what to do?

Well, I'm revving the blog back up, and one of the reasons I'm doing so is to journal my way through a self-imposed month-long challenge of eating like Mark Bittman would, using the recipes found in The Food Matters Cookbook (a follow-up to the original Food Matters).  Maybe I'll make myself a WWMD bracelet to remember my commitment to nutritional excellence when I find myself staring longingly at the Oreo Cakesters I drop in the kids' school lunches every day.

I hope to discover a balance.  Life would be a hard, empty shell of its former self if I could never again eat a Giant Chewy SweetTart.  Birthdays would lose a bit of their luster without a trip to Chick-Fil-A for a Peppermint Milkshake in the middle of December.  But, I don't think it is good to hate vegetables (and drinking unflavored water, for that matter), and I kinda do.  Vegetables and whole grains and water are our nutritional BFFs!  I treat them like red-headed step-children.

Will I love them one month from tomorrow?

I would like to find out.

If ever there was a reason to believe that we are beings made for eternity, it is how much we want to do every day. It is more than we could ever possibly do. I have made a hobby of reading time management books, and they all start with the same premise: you can't do it all. There will always be more to do, to read, to enjoy, to savor than we possibly can take in or give out any given 24 hours.

This fact can sometimes send me into panic mode. I want to grab up everything I hold dear and keep grabbing...more time, Lord. I need more time. I so want to do it all, and do it well.  And it sends me to my knees, this inability to keep all my plates spinning in the air, how I miss the sweet moment with my son because I'm distracted by the cobwebs in the den, how I neglect my prayer time to read my email, how I wish I could just spend a day or two doing nothing but reading all of the books stacked up by my bed. And then (and this is funny) there are books I want to re-read and I think, I can't, I'm already almost 40 and look at all of the books still left for me to read!

And that is just the beginning.

We were made for more than this, I can feel it in my bones. 

We were made to be perfect, we were made to live forever, we were made to enjoy life completely, fully. You know how even our best moments are tinged with sadness? Even the very best moments have a little of the bittersweet in them, because they are so fleeting, often still a little dirty with selfishness.

I am looking forward to a place I don't know and yet I do, a place with plenty of room for everybody, a table that is full of the very best food, a sing-a-long full of people from all over the world. We'll all understand each other, finally speaking the same language again after so many years...indeed, our eyes will light up when we see each other, because we know that we all share the same feeling of excitement, of joy and of love. 

A place where Someone will come up to me and wipe the tears from my eyes, tears that no one else has seen, a place where wrongs are made right, where everyone can run as fast as the wind and no one cares who wins the race because really, everyone here has already won.  Where trees grow lush and full of fruit (I would like to go ahead and put in a vote for peaches), where sparkling, sweetly-singing rivers laugh and whisper truths I already know in my soul. 

Where there is plenty of time to read all of the books, to paint and to sing, to laugh and to dance, to do the very best work that only you can do.  Oh yes, there is such a place and I will be there for eternity.  To think that life on earth is all the existence I was made for...it just doesn't make sense.

AND THEN, on top of all that goodness, will be the best Friend and Father, my King and my sweet Brother.  No longer will I have to wonder, because I will see Him as He is. I look forward to a great big bear hug, a grin, and a kiss on top of my head.

Oh friends, if you read this and think I'm wrong...let's talk about it. But think, and listen to your heart and to your heart's longings.  Everything, everyone was made for better than what we have right now.

My First Appliqued Pillow

How do you get the little accent over the "e" in applique? I don't know. But I don't have to have the accent there to tell you that I finally completed my Christmas pillow.

Yes, it is January. Mid- to late-January, to be specific. BUT done is better than perfect, and I'll throw it in a bin with all of the other decorations and it will be such a happy surprise next December!

 I used the tutorial from TaDa! Creations. It was very thorough and helpful, and if you ever need to applique something yourself, you should check it out.


Since my mom lives four hours away, I have no one to truly tell me what a great job I did.  Actually there are mistakes, but for a first go-round, I think it turned out fabulous. And I'm sure my mom would too.


I showed it to each of my kids and my husband, and they all said it looked good. Fluffy and soft, actually, was the prevailing sentiment.

I love the ball fringe too. It was my first time with it, and it is much more forgiving than twisted cord piping. And so much more fun! The retro print and the ball fringe give it a childhood vibe that I luuuuuuv.

OK, it's time to fix supper now. If you want, you can be a mom substitute and tell me how awesome my pillow creation is.  Apparently I need a LOT of affirmation. 


Don't you love it?

MLK day

Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so the kids were out of school.  We went to Charlotte to watch a Bobcats game.  I tried to take a picture of all of these little birds sitting on the barricades, but they flew away.

Sadly, none of my family wanted to stay outside in the cold and wait for the birds to come back for my picture.

Here is one little guy who stayed around. He was brave.

 

Here is a bobcat head getting ready to eat the children.  Emma is as tall as me now, but she's hunched over because she is cold. Jack is wearing my vest because he was cold. Will, surprisingly, was the only one with sense to wear the appropriate clothing.

  A glimpse of Charlotte.

 I have no pictures of the Bobcats game because it was dark and I didn't feel like wrestling my camera out of my bag. They lost. Thankfully, we are not die hard Bobcat fans, so it did not affect us too much. 


It was a fun day!

January 3

THAT is the world's worst chicken pot pie casserole. Not only did it taste horrible, it looked nasty and it took a long time to make. I boiled a whole chicken to get the meat, cut up tiny little pieces of carrots, onion and celery, made a homemade sauce. The only thing not time-consuming were the canned biscuits on top, and they were the only edible piece of the whole concoction.
While making some pineapple casserole to go with my nasty chicken pot pie (at the time it was in the oven, so I didn't know it was nasty yet), I hear Jack yell out, "Will's throwing up!". And indeed he was, puking and crying simultaneously. So sad, and yet my first thought was that I was glad he was on the wood floor and not the rug because it would make clean up much easier.

So this picture is of Will on his vinyl beanbag, which is on a huge beach blanket, watching t.v. With a trash can between his legs. Boudreaux is keeping him company.

I hope no one else gets it, but the beanbag and the blanket will stay out tonight just in case.

January 1

On the first day of 2012, my resolution is to pursue God.

I will not always do this very well, but this truth is what I will cling to:

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6 ESV)

God began a good work in me when He first adopted me as his daughter, bought back from sin and death at a steep price.

It is easy to spend most of one's day only noticing the bad, the wrong, the inconvenient, the brokenness of our world. It is also easy to not notice anything at all, but just to go through our hours in a flurry of busy tasks, either completely on autopilot or too stressed to see people or beauty or anything besides the next task to be completed.

Instead, let's take to heart Phillipians 4:8...

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

And not only think about these things, but look for them as we go about our lives. Look for God entering into our daily business, see him responding to our praises and petitions. I would like to open my eyes in 2012 and see Jesus more clearly.
as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18 ESV)

I know I am a little behind the times, but in the last week or two I have immersed myself in the world of Pinterest and more recently, Houzz.  Alternatively, these sites can be called Unrealistic Expectations Addiction or Crack for Homemakers.  They should both link to Perfectionists Anonymous, or If I Would Just Stop Looking at All These Pictures I Might Actually Get Some of My Projects Done Anonymous.

I am so glad that I found both of these websites, because I was a little concerned that I was not wasting quite enough time on the Internet.  Pinterest was created by an evil genius who evidently spent a lot of time like me tearing pictures out of magazines and organizing them by topic.  I still have 3-ring binders - big fat ones - with magazine articles in sheet protectors.  In the early years of our marriage, I would spend hours tearing out and organizing inspiring magazine articles. Our house would be beautiful! I would make all of my children's clothing and smile humbly as all of my jealous mom-peers heaped compliments upon my head. It was like playing make-believe.  Then I had kids and actually had to play make-believe, and the tearing out of inspiring articles slowed considerably.

How many of those ideas have I acted upon?  Off the top of my head, I'd say maybe 5%.  But oh, how I love to be inspired.

Houzz is what every home magazine in print should be - just straight up pictures.  I don't want to hear about how you and the architect had to tweak the design, nor do I care that it took two months for your decorator to track down the absolutely perfect paint color to match your $125/yard custom curtains.  Just show me the stinkin' pictures.

So I would write more tonight, but I'm too busy violating Exodus 20:17 (go look it up...and then pin it to my "Habitual Sins" board).

Fall Days

Emma loves to take pictures, so she took the camera out back one fall day and captured some great images.

 Here you see our backyard from the perspective of a beetle.

 Will practices kicking the football. 

  

Action shots! Jack takes a plunge off the retaining wall.

 Here's Will!

 In the last picture, Will was pretty obvious. This time you have to hunt for him.

 Jack has his own fun in the leaf pile.

  

For Jack's birthday party, I made cupcakes. I thought it would be easier than a big cake, but I still managed to make it pretty labor-intensive.  However, they turned out pretty cute and Jack loved them.

  

OK, I found a recipe on Pinterest for koolaid-flavored popcorn.  It looked so fun! But it tasted exactly like Cap'n Crunch, which is not bad, but it took a long time to make and left a huge mess to clean up in the kitchen. Can't say I would recommend Kool-Aid popcorn. Next time I'll just set out a bowlful of dry cereal and save my energy for better uses.

 The highlight of Jack's birthday party was the touch football game. Justin quarterbacked both sides.  Here he is calling a play in the huddle.

 OK, does everybody know the play?  Here we go!

 

Hike!

 Jack catches it in the corner of the endzone.

Congratulations follow from Adam, his teammate. What a great birthday party!

Some Practical Ways to Sit at Jesus' Feet

OK, I've admitted it, I am Martha.  So how do I become Mary? 

Ahh, good question, grasshopper.

There can be a perception that spending time at Jesus' feet is this blissful, quiet, yoga-like experience where we close our eyes and inhale through our nose and picture ourselves in a meadow with Jesus running toward us.

Sometimes it can be like that, I guess.

As I've mentioned earlier, for me it's usually more like a battle to stay focused.  And when our kids were little, it sounded more like this:

"Mama is trying to read her Bible!! Now you get back in there and watch Dora and if I hear your little brother crying again because you hit him, you'll be the one who is crying when I get done with you!!"

Or something highly spiritual along those lines.

So here are some thoughts on sitting at Jesus' feet:

1. We have to realize that physically sitting at someone's feet is an act of submission.  When Mary sat at Jesus' feet, she was saying in essence that nothing was more important than him, and that she was his student, his follower.  She was eager to learn from him.
We all have full lives, and we all make choices every day of how we are going to spend our time. One of my favorite time-management books is 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam. In it, the author shows how our priorities (or lack of them) drive our time-related decisions each day.

What does the way I spend my day say about who Jesus is in my life?

* A side note to parents of young children:  you are going through a tough season in your life right now, and often it feels like you are on a spiritual desert island.  But don't let that be a cop out.  Sitting at Jesus' feet will look different for you right now.  Sometimes all you can do is cry out for Jesus to help you!  I would encourage you to find ways to memorize Scripture; you will be amazed at the Holy Spirit's ability to pop that piece of truth into your brain just when you need it. 

One great way to do that is listen to verses set to music.  God wired us to remember words in songs better than spoken words.  Heck, I can still do the rap to "It Takes Two" and you should hear my husband break it down on "Ice, Ice Baby."  Now, let's use some of that memory storage for something worth while! 

Two resources that I know of are Fighter Verses and the Seeds Family Worship CDs.  Somebody bootlegged the Seeds of Courage CD for us when our kids were younger (Sorry! If it makes you feel better, the cd skipped. Alot.)  Anyway, I will never forget our entire family singing, "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding..."  except one of the kids thought they were singing, "And the pizza guy..."

Also, (and this is something that has been wandering around in my brain for weeks now), what if you got another mom or your mom or sister to be a memory verse buddy? You could both say the verses to each other once a week, maybe just on the phone (but no cheating! it kinda defeats the purpose.)  I've been thinking of asking my sister or a friend to do this with me, because I have the self-discipline of jello.  And the belly to prove it!  But that's another post.

OK, I know there's only one point here, but I have to go pick up the kids, so I will save the rest for another day. 

Don't forget!  The pizza guy is always watching over you, transcending all understanding. What a comfort.

Fruit Cocktail Casserole

Tonight we are eating Tater Tot Casserole.  We rarely eat casseroles; we are more of a meat, starch, and veggie family.  My children like easily identifiable food on their plate, and anything coming out of a 9x13 dish will be spread apart on their plate and analyzed.  They interrogate me:
 
What is this little brown thing?  
Is this a mushroom?
Is this white thing an onion?

This goes on until they are satisfied that any suspicious food particles have been named and the nasty bits pushed to the side.  I told them that one night I am going to fix Mystery Casserole and force them to slog through it on their own, eating food that has not been named.  Horrors!

Anyway, to my knowledge, I have never fixed Tater Tot Casserole before, but it was cheap, easy and Christy at Southern Plate recommended it, so we tried it out.

Even though the skepticism about said casserole ran pretty high amongst my family members, I can now confidently pronounce Tater Tot Casserole a success. Delicious! and filling.

However,  all of this talk about casseroles reminded me of a time when our kids were all still babies and we had a young couple over.  They were engaged, and Justin was doing their pre-marital counseling.  They came up to our house once a week, he met with them, and then they stayed for supper. 

Well, one evening as I was fixing supper, I realized that I did not have any pineapple for my pineapple casserole.  If you've never had pineapple casserole, you are missing out.  It is canned pineapple tidbits, sugar, flour, and cheddar cheese covered with crushed ritz crackers that have been drizzled with melted butter.  It should be dessert, but in our house, it's a side dish.

Anyway, I panicked.  No pineapple!  Is there any substitute for pineapple when it is the headliner in a dish called pineapple casserole?  I guess the kiddos had fried my brain that particular day, because I decided to go ahead and make the dish using fruit cocktail.  Fruit cocktail, people!!

When we all sat down to dinner, you couldn't really tell, because the fruit cocktail was hidden under its blanket of cracker crumbs.  But once Justin started to spoon some onto his plate, the gig was up.  He looked at me curiously and asked, "What is this?"  And I said, "It's fruit cocktail casserole.  I didn't have any pineapple." 

It was so gross, y'all! One bite was enough.  The sweet little couple ate all of theirs, but Justin stopped eating after he said, "I think I just ate a hot grape."  Clearly, I had pushed the boundaries in old school Southern cuisine, and not in a good way.

So my advice to you tonight is:

1. Try Tater Tot Casserole.
2. Definitely try Pineapple Casserole.
3. Do not attempt Fruit Cocktail Casserole.

Don't you care?

Yesterday Justin preached about Jesus with Martha and Mary.  You know the story, when Martha is super busy getting lunch ready for Jesus and his crew, and Mary (her sister) isn't helping Martha at all.  She is just sitting at Jesus' feet, listening.  Martha is frustrated because her sister isn't doing her fair share of the work, so she asks Jesus to tell Mary to get up and help her.  Martha asks Jesus, "Don't you care that my sister has left me to serve alone?"

Don't you care, Jesus?

In January, our church plant will be two years old.  The church family is expanding, but slowly.  At the three year mark, we want to be a self-supporting church, able to meet our operating expenses without the assistance of other churches.

I'm not sure if we're going to make the mark.

Don't you care, Jesus?

Martha saw all that she had to do: good work serving others, but she couldn't see Jesus.  He wasn't anything but another item on her to-do list.  Feed Jesus and his friends: check.

I so relate to Martha.

• Read the Bible: check.
• Make supper: check.
• Do the Laundry: check.
• Pray before drifting off to sleep: check.

Jesus loved Martha.  He looked at her and said, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her." Mary chose to sit and listen to Jesus.  Martha chose to run herself ragged, trying to be the perfect hostess.

I struggle mightily with anxiety and being troubled about many things.  It's kind of my modus operandi.  And this whole church plant adventure has been the perfect storm for anxiety.  It has exposed

• my selfishness (I don't want to talk to new people!)
• my pride (I don't want to help lead music - I don't sing well enough!)
• my apathy (I should be praying for people in our church family...but I think I'll check facebook instead.)

But most of all, I can see with greater clarity than ever my lack of trust in God.

God my Father, who gives "good gifts to those who ask him," who knows every hair on my head, who loves me so much that he sent Jesus to save me, who will not leave me or forsake me, this is the God of whom I continually ask, "God, don't you care?"

When I sit down to read my Bible and pray, I either a) start to doze off or b) fight an internal battle with the anxious portion of my mind that is saying, "Are you kidding me? You are going to sit down and just read? Have you seen your bathroom floor lately? There are million of people all around the world right now leading productive lives and you are just going to sit there?  Well, not if I can help it!"  And the internal nagging increases in intensity.

This struggle is not by accident, I believe.  That voice is suspiciously absent when I sit down to watch a TV show or read a book of fiction.  We super-Christians don't like to admit it, but it is hard to read your Bible.  It is even harder to pray.  It is hard, and it seems pointless, and so we move on.  But as Jesus told Martha, listening to him and sitting at his feet is the most important, the most necessary thing I can do each day.  God knows what I need.  He knows what's going to happen with the church plant, and he's got that under control too. 

Fun Finds

Hey Friends,

I've found some blogs that are right up my alley and I just wanted to share them with you. Some of these are new to me and some are tried and true, but they may be new to you.

For all of you coupon cutters and thrifty mamas, here are the two old reliable favorites:

• Money Saving Mom and Southern Savers.  Money Saving Mom has a lot of fun extras besides just couponing, but I like using Southern Savers for my grocery and drug store couponing.  They are both worth adding to your blog reader, because they do not always overlap on their info.

For your home decorating fix, there are a ton of talented women out there blogging away with crafty ideas.  I am still a little torn up over all of the home decor blogs: part of me is inspired, and part of me is envious because they are so talented.  Inspiration wins, though, and I'm constantly bookmarking ideas for my future projects.

Here are my three new favorites:

• Ana White - I want to grow up and be Ana White!  She lives in Alaska and builds her own furniture.  Now that's what I'm talking about.  Plus she has a brag blog where other like-minded DIYers can share their favorite completed projects.  And she puts all of the plans on her site for her projects.  A whole lotta fun if you love some power tools, I tell you what.

• kojo designs - two sisters with a fun sense of style.  Pictures on their site are beautiful, and they share a lot of ideas from other bloggers.  I imagine this is what Ana White would do if they took away her power tools and moved her to somewhere with less snow.

• Maybe the cream of the crop:  Knock Off Decor...now, I don't know about you, but whenever my mom and I go shopping and I admire some cute little homey trinket, she will take it from me, peer closely at all of its working parts, and declare: Susan, you could make that yourself.  Well, Mom, now that I found this blog, you are so, so right.  I can make it all by myself. I am currently in love with the knock off pottery barn mirror. I can already see one adorning a lonely wall in our basement that is crying out for light to be reflected upon it. Very exciting. 

I'm sure everybody has their favorite cooking blogs too, but here are two that I am really enjoying:

• David Lebovitz - David is an American chocolatier and pastry chef living in Paris.  I am a closet Francophile so I can get my food and France fix all on one site.  My sister gave me two of his books, The Sweet Life in Paris and a homemade ice cream recipe book called Perfect Scoop, and I am now officially a fan.
• Another food blog my sister put me on to is Smitten Kitchen.  Deb, the author, has a great sense of humor, great food pics, and great recipes.  Definitely worth putting on the reader.
• And oh yeah, one more: Of course, I love The Pioneer Woman. Who doesn't? I started looking at her blog for her amazing photography and fun commentary, but I find myself going to her for food inspiration lately as well.  Plus I love her step by step pictures of compiling a dish.  I think Ree can make any food look appealing.  Of the three food blogs listed here, Pioneer Woman would probably have the most food that my whole family would eat.

If you want to be inspired, look at kisses from Katie. This is the blog of a young American woman who has moved to Uganda and adopted African girls as her own daughters. Beautiful.

And last but not least, I have just started checking out a blog website called Blogging with Amy.  If you want to start a blog to supplement your family income, this would be a great place to start.  She's written an ebook about time management which I would read but I don't have time because I'm looking at all of these blogs!


 Now, when you are overwhelmend with all of the inspirational ideas in the aforementioned websites, how do you keep up with all of them?  Well, I've started using SpringPad.  Springpad is basically just a place to keep all of your bookmarks, recipes, ideas and whatever else you want.  I like the spring it button I put on my web browser toolbar.  Plus I like that I can use Springpad  on my desktop and the iPad and still access all my favorite bookmarks from either place.  I'm sure there are lots of similar sites, but I've found Springpad to be pretty darn user-friendly.  If you know of a better bookmarking tool, let me know!

So there you go, friends!  What are your favorite blogs?  Not that I need to read any more of them, but I always like to know! 

Journaling - Is that a word?

I had another post all lined up for today, but it dwelt heavily on my sin issues, and after yesterday, I figured I should keep it light. Otherwise I might wake up tomorrow to my Mom standing over me staging an intervention because I felt bad about myself. But don't worry, Mom, I'm ok.

What I love about blogging is having to wrestle with all of these habits/issues/dilemmas in a healthy way. I have lots of thoughts flitting through my head as I go about my day, but when I have to write them down, I have to slow down and be a bit more thorough, following my sin-warped logic to its conclusion. When I realize that what I am typing doesn't make any sense or doesn't line up with what I know to be true, it forces me to mentally go back and search for where I left the path, so to speak.  The same holds true regarding conversations about life, spirituality and matters of the heart; sometimes it takes saying the words out loud to realize they might not be true.  Discussing these things, even if doing so brings out some doubts or uncertainties, is helpful. So is reading your Bible and praying through whatever you're wrestling with.

I envision myself reading this blog as a stranger, and I think about all of the questions or arguments that might come up. I don't always get it right, but at least I'm more mindful of who I am, who Jesus is, and how we relate to each other. It is good stuff, even if it's a little messy. I guess that's why journaling is so helpful; I am just journaling in cyberspace for all who care to join me.  I figure if I'm thinking about it, someone else probably is too, so why not process life together?

I believe; help my unbelief

Today a friend emailed pictures to Justin from our first Sunday morning worship for Grace Church (it was two weeks ago; I should have blogged about it, but I was too busy having a little breakdown. I'll save that for another post.).  He forwarded them on to me, and as I looked at them, all I could think was, "Man, I have really gotten fat."  And it's true.  Since 2008 I have gained thirty pounds, and in 2008, I was trying to lose fifteen pounds, so that is saying something.

Weight loss is always a hot topic for Americans, and certainly for women.  Get any group of females together and eventually, the conversation will find its way to eating, exercising, and different dieting techniques.  This is true even in Christian circles: in fact, a recent study showed that Christians in America may actually be fatter than their non-Christian friends.  Maybe it's just too many potluck fellowships on Sundays after church.  Some folks chalk it up to Christianity being prevalent in the fried-chicken, mashed-potatoes-and-gravy, banana-pudding-eating South.  Who knows.

Body issues and general self-consciousness can rule people's lives.  We live in a culture that esteems slim and trim figures almost as much as we love our soft serve.  Not quite, though; therein lies the problem.

 Anyway, I spend alot of time thinking about my weight.  I think about it when I drink a slim-fast shake, and I think about it when I eat an ice cream sandwich.  I think about it when I exercise, and I think about it when I veg on the couch and watch TV.  I think about it too much. I think.

So what is an appropriate perspective on body image?  Should it matter to me what astronomical figure glares back at me from the bathroom scale each morning?  Well, of course the answer is yes and no.

I can't say I've figured out what I should be thinking about my body, but I believe I've laid some groundwork.

So my answer to the question above is no because:

•  My self-worth does not come from what pant size I currently wear (don't ask), because my identity is in Christ, not in my own self-discipline.  My hypothetical works of eating healthy meals and logging 20 miles on the treadmill each week can never ultimately satisfy my need to feel good about myself, because there is nothing in me to feel good about. That's why I need Jesus.
• I was an itty bitty thing when we got married 16 years ago, yet I looked at honeymoon pictures and bemoaned my wide hips.  I don't know that I ever was completely happy with how I looked, and I know now that I can't expect all of my life problems to resolve themselves once I reach my "goal weight." My happiness cannot find its ultimate fulfillment in my appearance.  It won't work.

And my answer is yes because:

• I overeat.  My god has been my stomach(Phil. 3:18-19) and I have believed myself incapable of resisting the temptation to eat more than is healthy, contrary to what the Bible says.
• One of the fruits of the spirit is self-control.  As I walk in step with the Holy Spirit, relying on Him to sustain and help me, I have the power within me to control my habits and desires.
• I Corinthians 6:19-20 says "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."  My body is a gift from God; I want to honor Him by how I eat and how I move and how I spend my time in it.

I have never been able to sustain a weight-loss effort more than a few weeks.  I am pitifully weak when it comes to food. I almost don't believe that I can get in shape now; I feel as if I will be saddled with this extra weight for the rest of my life.  I give up easily.  And honestly, I don't bring it before God that often because I am ashamed that it is such a big problem in my life.  I should know better than that, being a pastor's wife and all, but there it is.

As for how much of body image anxiety should make up my thought life, I would say zero percent.  But it is there, nagging me all the time, distracting me from more profitable thoughts.  So my answer to this is the same answer to pretty much any idol that needs de-throning: prayer and meditation on key passages of Scripture.  I have to remind myself often that God is for me, and that he has set me free from the guilt and power of sin.  My focus will largely be on portions of the Bible that affirm these truths.  And on staying out of the ice cream sandwiches.

Death-wish Frog

This may feel like a re-run, because the frog has leapt onto the pages of this blog before, but I tell you what...

He outdid himself today.

The backstory:
Said froggy currently resides in a second-hand goldfish bowl in our kitchen. For more of his murky history, you can read this.

Jack and I were emptying the dishwasher while I chatted on the phone with my sister.

Earlier that day, I had cleaned the frog's bowl and given him fresh new water to swim around in. The water was dangerously close to the top of the bowl, and the frog had even gone so far as to try to grab my shirtsleeve when I reached across the water's surface. For more sensible moms that would have been a signal to empty some of the water, but not me. I just said, "Stop it, you freak!" and moved on, figuring I had showered the frog with enough attention for one day.

So...talking on the phone, emptying dishwasher...I told my sister jokingly that one day that frog will jump right out of its bowl. As the words came out of my mouth, the prophesy came true: right before my eyes, that slimy little critter came up out of the water, scootching across the counter top towards me. He slid right off the counter, plinkoed around in the top rack of the dishwasher amongst the clean cups and dropped to the bottom rack, ultimately landing in the very belly of the dishwasher. I sprang into crazy-mom-ninja action, shrieking into my poor sister's ear and hopping around the kitchen. Jack vanished; who knew that kid could move so quickly?

The commotion brought the rest of the family running; I pointed at Will (the frog owner, ostensibly) and Justin and commanded them to retrieve the frog. Justin helpfully offered to shut the dishwasher and put it on the "pots and pans" cycle. Then he got a stadium cup to try to scoop the frog up, but the space was too tight.

There was only one way to get that frog out, and it was with your bare hands.

Justin, Will and I all simultaneously declared that we weren't going to touch the frog.

Well, someone has to touch the frog.

So Justin removes the bottom rack of the dishwasher and I get down on my hands and knees and go in after that blankety-blank frog. I have it in my hands once and it wriggles free, but I grab it a second time and Justin offers the stadium cup as a frog depository. He pours the frog back into the bowl and then scoops out enough water to render the bowl an effective prison once more. Will, who has the phone now, gives my sister the play-by-play.

After the excitement, I ask Will if he really still wants that stupid frog. He shrugs; the only way he would care about the frog at this point in his life is if the frog put on a Braves jersey and started batting .317. And could scores us tickets behind home plate at Turner Field. Justin and I look at each other and contemplate assisting the frog in taking a long walk off a short pier, but what stops us is knowing that Jack (our resident St. Francis of Assissi)would be devastated if we offed the frog.

Plus if we throw the frog in the creek, it would probably grow to be eight feet long and hunt us down and eat us (except Jack, of course).

Best to keep him in the bowl.

The Many Faces of My Beloved

Justin turned 40 in March.  It was pretty anti-climactic, all things considered.  I had given him a surprise party last year that involved some pretty elaborate evasive techniques, and I wasn't up to the drama again. 

Italian Cream Cake with 40 candles.  Can you say "waxy frosting"?

I wanted to give him something amazing or take him on a fabulous trip, but nothing really came to mind.  Plus since we're a one-income family (and he's the one income), it would be like, "Hey, I got you this cool new elecronic gadget for your birthday!  I just put it on the credit card; I hope that's ok.  Love you! Happy birthday and good luck making this work in the family budget!"  So I got him a hammock, a day late, and made him shrimp, sweet potatoes, and broccoli, since his favorite seafood restaurant was closed on his birthday.  No, it's not Long John Silver's. 

What more could you want?  Oh and an italian cream cake, his favorite.

While I was preparing the birthday meal extravaganza, Emma was playing with the camera.  I'm so glad, because here is what she captured for all of posterity (and modernity) to enjoy:

  I love my husband.

Thunderstorm

This morning, the power went out at 1 a.m. I know because the silence woke me up. It was silent inside the house, but very noisy outside the house. More on this later. My husband and I like to sleep in a wind tunnel-like atmosphere with a small portable fan on his side of the bed and then the overhead fan doing 90 mph just as an extra precaution. Not for the air flow so much as for the noise. When it's completely quiet, I can hear ringing in my ears. I'm not sure why that is, but I would never go to the doctor for it anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

The power went out because there was a thunderstorm raging outside. It was quite toasty in the house with no electrically-powered a/c to cool things down, and there was no sleeping with great crashes of thunder and flashes of lightning without all of our fannage to muffle the noise. Sleep eludes one in a hot and uncomfortably noisy atmosphere, I have found.

Justin and I both were awake, waiting for a child or three to show up needing comfort. Instead we got the dog (already not my favorite member of the household - see yesterday's post). She went to Justin's side of the bed first, and I heard him take her jangly collar off. Then she came around to my side and I could feel her chin on the covers as she stared at me intently. I pretended not to notice, but the motion of her wagging tail was coming through her body into her jaw resting on the bed and making the mattress sway slightly. Hard to ignore.

I got the extra blanket off the foot of the bed and spread it out on the floor for her. She promptly circled and got into the doggy equivalent of the comfy position, all curled up with her nose on her hind legs.

Jack, who is normally our go-to worrier, never even showed up. We all compared notes in the morning while getting ready for school and all the kids woke up when the power went out, but managed to go back to sleep by themselves. Jack had been up with us until close to 11:00 p.m., stressed out because at the lunch table earlier that day, the girls in his class said that ghosts were real and if you didn't believe in them, they would come and find you and haunt you until they did. Powerful incentive in Jack's mind. Justin asked him if he was going to believe a bunch of second grade girls or his parents, and I think he was a little bit on the fence, but ultimately he came around to the parental viewpoint. Still, we had to watch Charles Barkley on the David Letterman Show to distract him from ghostly thoughts. Sir Charles did the trick, and Jack trooped back upstairs to bed. Not even a thunderstorm could bother him.

Maybe Tomorrow

It is a beautiful day here in Sparkle City, South Carolina. The wind is blowing, and the birds sound like the soundtrack to The Masters Golf Tournament.

I read somewhere that when networks are showing golf and the birds aren't singing up to par (get it? Up to par?), they will pipe in additional bird chirps and tweets. Bird watchers all over America were up in arms one time because the birdsong that accompanied the golf broadcast came from a bird who didn't live in that region of the country. Evil TV networks. I totally side with the birdwatchers on this one.

Anyway, it's been about three or four weeks since last I blogged, and I was finally feeling inspired, so I came outside for a little time alone with my thoughts and the iPad. I had just formulated something brilliant which I would record for future generations when my daughter came out with the dog and said she (the dog) just threw up all over the rug.

So instead of blogging, I will now go inside the house and do what I And many other moms do best: Gripe while cleaning up someone else's mess.