No Cooperation!

Katie doesn't like me to take her picture. This is a problem. I find it very frustrating that my sweet, darling daughter won't smile pretty and say cheese. So in retaliation I'm posting these lovely pictures from the other day. They document Katie's uncooperativeness perfectly...


"Smile pretty!" Oh, no! Look out for the arm that's trying to swat at the camera!

"Mom...are you taking my picture?"
"MOM! Don't take my picture!" Check out that furrowed brow. I just love that phrase-furrowed brow...
"Fine. Take the picture. But you can't make me smile. Heh."

Maybe after I show Katie these FABULOUS pictures posted on my blog she'll think twice before deciding NOT to "smile pretty!"

Shop Talk: I've started to write my baseball article. I'm finding that making the facts fun is a little tricky. I mean, sure they're interesting and all that, but are they fun? Even with non-fiction the information can read like a story. Maybe that's the angle I need to take. The other thing I need to work out is the timeline and where to start. It's possible to start at one point and then refer back to another point in the time line. That sounds kind of confusing, sorry. This morning I sat and typed trying not to get hung up on perfection. I can move paragraphs, add facts, whatever, later on.

Allison's preschool graduation is Friday. I'm a little sad that preschool is over. I'll miss seeing her teachers and the other parents. I'll miss the security of knowing there is one teacher for every five children. Preschool is such a fun age. They're full of curiosity, energy, and innocence. I love that. They also struggle for independence, stretch boundaries, and push limits. It's a huge time of physical and emotional growth for them. I've thoroughly enjoyed having preschool aged children. Allison is excited about Kindergarten so I will put on a brave face and be excited with her because that's what mom's do. But inside my heart is just a little bit broken.

Dyson

Heather asked if I like my Dyson vacuum. I LOVE my Dyson!! Click on the link and you can see the model we got. We actually got it at a close out price at Sears! If you hurry you may be able to get the same deal. Anyway, I love the pivoting head. It's so easy to maneuver around furniture and it self adjusts to the height of your carpet. No more bending down to fuss with levers or knobs trying to guess which setting is best for your carpet. And then I just push a button to turn off the beater bar when I want to switch to floors. EASY! The best part is probably the stretchy cord for the attachments. If you have pets you know that pet hair accumulates under baseboards, in corners, and other hard to reach places. With the stretchy attachment thing getting into those hard to reach places is easy! No time spent on assembling hoses and gizmos, just flip the lid at the top of the handle and pull out the wand. Simple! I admit I've preferred bag vacuums to bagless simply because the emptying of the bagless containers always sends my allergies into fits. Not the case with this push button beauty. Simply hold the container over the trash can and push the release button. The bottom of the container opens and the gunk falls into the trash can. There's very little gunk dust to worry about. So there. Dyson gets two thumbs up from me!!

Go Away Boys!

The phone rang yesterday afternoon. I noticed from the caller ID that it was one of our neighbors. I figured they'd seen the for sale sign in our front yard and were calling with the usual curious questions. Imagine my surprise when a deep, male voice on the other end of the phone asked to speak to Katie! Katie wasn't home so the call ended after a brief couple of sentences. Apparently our 15 year old neighbor boy has a bit of a crush on my baby girl. Go away boy! Don't come back --- at least until Katie's 30!!! I find myself a bit unprepared for these things! Fortunately I've talked with Katie before about the fact that at this point we feel that she is too young to be taking calls from boys. She also understands that she is too young for a boy (same boy who called) to come over and ask if she can come outside with him. I totally understand having crushes and all that. I also understand that there is no real point in complicating the life of a 7th grader with a boyfriend!! As a society we push our children to grow up way too fast as it is. Katie was quite relieved when I told her about the call and then reinforced our previous conversations about boys calling. "Mom. I don't want to talk to any boy on the phone!" That's right Katie! Go away boys!!! Good grief! I have two more daughters coming up behind this one!!! Does anyone have the number for the local convent!?

Open House Day

We're having our first Open House today. I'm nervous. I'm sure no one will come. And if they do come they'll hate my house, or think it's overpriced, or like the one for sale across the street better. I'm glad the realtor will be here instead of me. Once upon a time we sold a house ourselves and did the showings ourselves too. I don't remember being real nervous then. I have a kajillion things I need to be doing so this is going to have to be short. It seems Little Miss can make a mess faster than I can clean them up. Today is not a good day for messes. My plan is to keep her contained in one room and then clean that room last. We'll see how that goes. I got a new vacuum cleaner last night. It's a Dyson. I admit I'm particularly hard on vacuums. Belts break, bags clog, cords get chewed up, walls get ding marks in them from vacuum crashes - you get the point. So the logic behind spending the money on a Dyson is the fact that it has a lifetime warranty, which loosely translated means 5 years. 5 years! They claim I can hurl the thing down the stairs and it'll take it. I don't plan to try that but it is a testament to its durability. I put the thing together at 11:30 last night and quick tried it out on my bedroom carpet. So far so good. I'm anxious to give it a go on the rest of the house. We'll see if it's worth the money!

We went to our Indian neighbor's for dinner last night. Last night I learned all the names of the different foods we ate - today I can't remember any of them! I've never had Indian food before. It was delicious! This lady makes EVERYTHING from scratch! Not just from scratch but organic, natural scratch. She gets raw milk from a local farm and vegetables from a community farm where she plants things. She belongs to a food co-op as well. Natural, home grown food definitely tastes better! Kudos to her for working so hard to put healthy food into her family. I learned a bit about Indian culture too but that's another post.

Fast forward 9 hours...

The Open House went well. At least one couple seemed very interested and they were here for almost the entire hour of the Open House. They liked everything except the fact that the fireplace is gas instead of wood. They were very complimentary about everything else. Nice to hear good things.

We had the building inspection of the Tudor home. It went as expected. Our contract on that house was contingent on the inspection and its findings - meaning if the inspection revealed some costly issues we could back out. We love that house and really wanted to move forward with it but...decided to back out. I'm sad but confident that we made the right decision. There were some things that just didn't sit well with Ed & I. Some of them related to the inspection but some of them related to the location of the house as well. It's clear that God has put certain people in my path this last week to really reveal what He wanted me to know about the house. He is so good.

House For Sale

Yes, indeed. Our house is officially on the market. There's a sign out front and everything. Our painter guys are coming this morning to repaint the kitchen ceiling and start the front porch. Hopefully they'll finish by Saturday. We're having our first Open House and we'd like the house to look its best. So I'm sure you're wondering why. Well, we found this new place, we love it, seems like a good idea, end of story. Now of course there's a little more to it than that but that's it in a nutshell. I love the house we live in now. It has plenty of space, great layout, nice neighborhood. But the new place has something that this house will never have - character. The new place is a 100 year old Tudor style home with 6+ bedrooms, original woodwork, lots of nooks and crannies, and a big FLAT yard. Here's the listing picture:

As I said, it seems like a good idea. We are praying for God's clear direction and if He doesn't want us to move then our house won't sell and we'll stay put. I'm okay with that. I've learned not to push doors open but rather to wait and let God lead us where He wants us to be. This move will eventually require decisions about school for the girls and that is a huge part of what we are praying about. It's been kind of interesting the last couple of days how different people have crossed my path and talked with me about education options. One of them was a complete stranger. I'm not sure what to make of all the information I've gotten these last couple of days but I'm praying that God will help me sort it out. So, if you want to move to western Massachusetts I know of a great house for sale...

Big Drama

I hope everyone had a nice Mother's Day! It was perfect weather here! We did a couple of projects around the house. I love feeling productive!


The garage got emptied, swept, and painted.

And the back deck got washed and re stained. Katie helped with both projects. I did the deck with her and she and Ed painted the garage. What a big help!

We also replenished bark mulch and weeded the little gardens around the yard. So now the everything looks lovely. Let that be a hint to you about what we're up to...... More info to come - promise.

Big drama after our soccer game on Saturday. But first let me tell you how well my little team did! They were great! Everyone got into it and they were excited about being goalie and getting into the game! I was so proud. Allison scored a goal! And she stopped a couple as our goalie! I felt like it went very well! However, after the game a parent came up to me to say how she was concerned about something. Apparently one of the other parents was smoking during the game and this parent was bothered by it - rightly so! I assured her that I would speak to the smoker and she told me that her husband was speaking to her. Fine - maybe that would be the end of it. Not so. Before I left, this concerned parent came and told me that the smoker had been very rude and nasty to the concerned parent's husband. Uh-oh. I told her again that I would take care of it and if I was met with any hostility I would call the youth sports director and let him handle it. Well, after I left these two parties had more words so the concerned parents went and spoke to the director themselves. He handled it. The smoker's child is no longer on my team. Too bad. I guess her smoking is more important than her child playing soccer. I'm so glad that I didn't have to get involved, although I was willing to step in and try to fix it. Oh well. It would've come up sooner or later - probably good to deal with it early on. On the bright side, after how well Saturday's game went I'm really looking forward to our practice tomorrow night!

Shop Talk: I got my Assignment 8 back from my instructor. She loved my article ideas! There were virtually no corrections or suggestions on my outlines! I'm so excited to turn the outlines into finished products now! YAY! She wasn't as impressed with my story synopsis. I wasn't real impressed with it either, truth be told. I really think non-fiction is my niche. I love the research part of it. Coming up with ideas seems to be easier too. Two more assignments and I'm done with my course! WOW!

What Will You Choose?

How does a whole week go by and I barely notice? Sorry 'bout that. It has been a busy week I suppose, but no busier than usual, maybe. We are on the verge on some exciting news but I fear it may be a bit soon to spill the beans. Stay tuned.

We have some new neighbors who moved in about a month ago. They are from India - not Indiana - India. He's an internist at our local hospital and she is a yoga, naturopath, organic guru of some sort. They have two children 11 & 9. Katie has become friends with the 11 year old girl. Super friendly people. They've been in the US for about 10 years - maybe a bit less. We've been invited for dinner at their home next Friday. I'm so looking forward to that! How often can you and your family experience another culture right in your own neighborhood. Miss Rosie is excited to cook us all an authentic Indian meal and insists she'll keep the spicy-ness to a minimum. Our other neighbors are going to be there too. I admit I'm a bit nervous about Becky and Allison's reactions. I'm actually going to give them a hearty snack a little while before we go - just in case. Allison is the one who will belt out "Mommy, I don't like this!" I will be speaking to her about her manners before we head over there believe me! Should be fun though, don't you think!?

I'm sure you noticed the absence of Shop Talk lately. Truth be told I've been preoccupied. I seem to let my time fill up with everything else right after I've mailed in an assignment. I do need to get my head back in it!

Little Miss graduates from preschool three weeks from today. I will no longer be the mother of a preschooler. Another chapter closed. The really great thing is that even though we close chapters in our lives, the book never ends. There's always more to it, new chapters, new beginnings. Of course some of you are thinking that death closes the book. But from my perspective, death begins a whole new, perfect, eternal chapter because I know Jesus. You can know him too. Tell Him you know you sin (we all sin!). Tell Him you're sorry. Ask for forgiveness. Tell Him you want to know Him and His spirit will fill you, heal you, transform you. If you believe this, do it! You and me will be part of the same book - the Book of Life - eternal life! Unfortunately, even if you never know Jesus as your savior, your book won't end in death either. The alternative to a perfect eternity is one that is dark, desperate, horrific, and completely separated from God. It's one or the other - and it's completely up to you. What will you choose?

TV Talk (and a little Soccer too)

I watched "Don't Forget The Lyrics" on Fox last night. It was a celebrity version of the show and Bret Michaels was the celebrity. You know Bret Michaels - think 80's hair band Poison. I found him disturbing. There was something about seeing a man, presumably in his 40's, wearing more eye makeup than most women I know, dyed hair, saggy jowls (is that the right word for a droopy jaw line?), some sort of bandanna wrapped around the front portion of his head, and scraggly clothes. He actually looks a little like Goldie Hawn. I wanted to holler "GROW UP!" at the TV - I think I might've actually done that. He's...yucky - for lack of a better word.

If you're a Survivor fan, you had to LOVE last night's show. Amanda pulled a fast one that rocked the tribe! I'm thinking this is probably the most entertaining season so far! James' leaving was sad. I liked James.

Our first soccer practice went well. This is the first time I'm coaching without another adult. I admit I fee rather intimidated by the parents, especially the dads. I'm sure that as they're standing there, arms folded, feet apart, listening to my little speech about soccer stuff, they are thinking, "Great, a female coach. What does she know. This ought to be a great season." Let's face it, female coaches - in any sport, at any level - have way more to prove than men. Not fair, but true. I tried to convey my soccer coaching philosophy in a straight forward, confident way, leaving little room for parent comments. I emphasized my intention to make this FUN above all else. I told them how the games were just for fun. I could tell that hit a nerve with one dad in particular. I'm nervous about our game tomorrow. My young team is in no way truly prepared for it. Fortunately, I have at least 5 kids who've played before and a couple more who I know will catch on quickly. I do have a 3 year old on my team who I'm sure will get plowed down early on and leave the field crying. She's timid, small, and really too young to be playing. Hopefully she'll get tough quick and be a star! I've seen that happen many times! I must go now and plan my team lineup for tomorrow's game - Wish Us Luck!!