Oh, we've come to intermission...

I'm not in the mood to write about the hospital just now, though I totally have to write about the urine log later. I don't see how Smurf still has a shred of sanity left. It will be my watch tonight.

In the meantime, I'm leaving you with this interesting thought I came across:

-----Email Message-----
Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 2:29 PM

For the last year, since I discovered PostSecret, I've been writing a different secret on every one dollar bill I get. When one makes it back. I'll send it to you.

I used to write my initials on the corners of the dollars I got in my birthday cards each year. This is like a more interesting version of that.

Tae Kwon Do

First, Mom's recovery is going much slower than anticipated. They're thinking maybe a blood transfusion is in order. They had her back on oxygen this morning. She was able to eat a little bit at lunch, and she was a bit more awake and aware this afternoon than she had been all morning.

Second, I'm in total need of a mental break. Smurf needs one more though, so I can't complain too much.

Third....also called "In other news"

This is Sweetling's second week of Tae Kwon Do. When she was little, I have to confess I was really hoping she would take a liking to gymnastics. I even enrolled her in gymnastics for a year or so at Cincinnati Gymnastics. It was never her thing though. We've since tried swimming and soccer....but what Sweetling is really excited about is this.

You go girl.

In other, other news, I had a great, great birthday this Tuesday. Bear pointed out that he thought fey creatures like myself don't age. We might not age. We certainly don't grow up. But we *do* have birthdays. Why? Cause birthdays are awesome excuses to have everything just the way we want it for a *whole* day. It's like a magic phrase. Merely utter "but it's my birthday" on calendar date for which it holds true, and reality itself shifts to your whim.

Sweetling assembled ingredients for the crock pot dinner for the day, then we went and picked up Smurf. Smurf treated us to an awesome Japanese restaurant called Mei for lunch. Then we went to the Krohn conservatory with cameras and sketch books and took pictures and did sketches for the entire afternoon. We left there and went to Sweetling's Tae Kwon Do lesson, which Smurf got a kick out of watching. (I'm so very clever). Dinner at home, which mother and of course the Jedi joined us for. We all played Cranium Cadoo...which like Cranium is basically an excuse to do silly things together. I opened presents (a pink pegasus Webkinz which I named Phoebe, a book of Akiane's art, and all seven seasons of Malcolm in the Middle episodes.) Then we had ice cream together. After Sweetling's bath, she helped me adopt Phoebe and showed me around the Webkinz world.

See, I told you reality shifts for me on my birthday :)

Mom's surgery

Mom's surgery was today and it went really well. They wound up being able to do everything without cutting her abdomen open. Smurf's staying in the hospital with her tonight. There's a chance that they'll send her home tomorrow (though I think that sounds rather soon).

I did nothing but sit in a hospital chair since 9 this morning, yet I'm totally exhausted. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get back to blogging in the next day or two. (Prolly more like two.)

Prayers for her recovery and prayers that the insurance all works out (yes, that is in question right now) would really be appreciated.

My turn

Gaming is cancelled for tomorrow night. Which makes that Friday night become a date night for me and the Jedi. On Fridays, after Sweetling goes to bed, we take turns picking what we want to do together. Tomorrow night its my turn. I really want to watch Firefly, but know he isn't going to go for that until we wrap up a series that we're already watching. So, something else. Hmmmm....

Today was such a much better day than yesterday. Yesterday, after I posted about the dishwasher, I decided to get the vacuuming done for the week. I don't *think* I sucked anything up with the vacuum cleaner, but it suddenly started making a horrible clicking noise. I only had the school room left to vacuum though, so I went ahead and tried to quickly vacuum the school room. I bumped the closet door (which was partly open) with the vacuum and knocked it off its track again. I don't remember what we had for dinner. It might have been leftovers because I didn't want to risk cooking. We were late for church. And my shoulder, which has been inexplicably sore recently was just plain hurting by that night. I took two motrin, but had a hard time sleeping because no matter how I laid, my shoulder throbbed in discomfort.

So, to sum up, yesterday was bad. Today was good.

Today, I got my freezer cleaned out, had a great day of school with Sweetling. We made moon craters by filling a cake pan with 8 cups of flour, sprinkling 1/4 cup of cocoa on top, and then dropping small balls and pebbles into the pan. Sweetling then measured the diameter and depth of the craters. It made a wonderfully awesome mess. And of course, a crater had to be made with the fist as well. While Sweetling changed her flour and cocoa covered clothes and washed her hands and feet (yes...she was that covered), I swept and mopped the kitchen floor for the third time this week. We did math brain teasers via email. I emailed Sweetling the problem, she sat at the computer in her bedroom and worked it out then emailed me her solution. While she did that, I found FIVE count them FIVE brand new crockpot recipes that I think all three of us will actually eat and enjoy. Yes, yes, this totally IS a major accomplishment. If you doubt me, I'm make you help me plan next month's dinner menus.

This afternoon, we left for the store at 3:40. I got three weeks worth of food for $180, including a couple of pricier meats. We got through the checkout and back home and had all the perishables put away AND fed Sweetling a quick snack AND STILL made it to Tae Kwan Do by 5:15. Of course, that's also because the Jedi showed up at 5 when we were just starting to unload groceries and totally saved the day. Sweetling is now signed up for six months of twice weekly lessons. She is extremely excited. I really liked the instructor, and her class was a small class, but had a range of ages and ability levels in it. (Including two little girls smaller than Sweetling who have a yellow and a red belt). The class ended with sparring. I don't know how typical that is of a kids martial arts class, but there it was. Sweetling is eager to try it. The Jedi was also all about her getting signed up. Mommy was wistfully remembering Cincinnati Gymnastics.

Now its 7:50. Sweetling's bath time is in ten minutes. I need to put the non-perishable groceries away, and I think I still have a load of whites in the dryer that need put away. I also have a day's worth of Breaking Free to read and respond to. (still on photocopied pages *sigh*). The Jedi is hooking a computer up in the living room that will run all the media electronic stuff through Windows Media.

He came home last night with the book America's Cheapest Family. Which, after I had broken everything we owned, seemed well timed. I had also spent a bit of the afternoon checking out cool online clothing just for fun. If I had the money to burn, I could drop hundreds of dollars into clothing every month. Hundreds. I don't. In fact, the last article of clothing I purchase were a pair of $8 brown cords at Steve & Berry's in January. Before that I dropped nearly ninety on a new bra. It was totally worth every penny of that money. So, online clothes browsing is truly window shopping in every sense of the word. I try to make Christopher Robin look at all the cool things I find, but she still hasn't gone for it. She did go bra shopping with me though, so that counts.

The dishwasher, by the way, worked just fine for the Jedi.

Talking Teeth and Broken Appliances

Sweetling is trying her best to put the tooth fairy out of business. She's lost and is growing in teeth that the dentist said doesn't usually happen till they are eleven. She's well past the teeth replacements that happen to the typical seven and eight year olds. For the last few months, every time I look at her, she has her hand in her mouth wiggling a tooth. This last tooth, an upper canine, has been loose for a while now. A long while. Sweetling, in exasperation, asked *when* was this tooth going to come out? This was not the first time the question had been asked. Having moved beyond the standard 'when its ready' responses, over the weekend, I told her that if she were really quiet, she could hear the tooth whispering to God about when it was going to be ready to come out. Now, don't judge me yet. In my defense, Sweetling is a bright eight year old, and could tell I was just kidding. But, we've been having fun with this. Now the game is, I have to lean very close to her mouth so that I can listen to what the tooth is saying and repeat it in a murmured little 'tooth' voice.

Yes. A tooth voice.

Sweetling thinks this is the funniest game in the world. She is amused and delighted and thrilled by this game. Last night teeth brushing went like this:

Sweetling: "Try to hear what my tooth is saying now."

Tooth: "I'm wiggling."

Sweetling: "Listen again."

Tooth: "I'm wiggling."

Sweetling: "Is it saying anything about when its going to come out?"

Tooth: "I'm love wiggling."

Then I had to listen to the tooth while she was rinsing out the toothpaste. Maybe the toothpaste rinse would bring the tooth to its senses.

Sweetling: "Mmmm?"

Tooth: "I'm wet."

Water went everywhere.

Sweetling: "Listen again."

Tooth: "I'm wet and cold."

More hysterics and spraying water.

Sweetling: "Sorry about the mirror, Mommy."

Today listening to the tooth resulted in "Sorry about the saliva in your hair, Mommy."

In other news, yesterday we had the oven repaired to the tune of $172. And we also had cable switched from lifeline (which we only had because it came with cable internet) to basic cable. This was done so that Sweetling and the Jedi could have access to more documentaries on the history channel, learning channel, discovery channel and so on.

Saturday I went to Christopher Robin's and the Bear's house for movie night. I should have said CR and the Bear. (Get it, get it? CJ and the Bear? I'm so clever.) Sweetling was excited, because Mommy's absence meant she and the Jedi got to hang out that night and watch Nova episodes on tape. They watched the first part of a two part thing, and watched the second part on Monday. Then they decided that Mommy should be a part of this family time on Monday night. So Sweetling came in to ask me what documentary I wanted to watch with them. Once Mommy got involved, we wound up watching "The Tick".

My laundry is caught up, my bathroom is clean. My dishes are put away....BUT...

see, I told you my stories always involved that conjunction.

After I had emptied the dishwasher, I noticed a great deal of water still in the bottom of the dishwasher. I checked the dial, and its gone all the way through its little cycle. I'm pretty sure it doesn't usually have water in it, cause occasionally I have to retreave plastic lids and spoons that have made there way down there to die. So, being the mechanically inclined person that I am, I slid my fingers around the base of the big round thing. I found a paper label that had wedged itself down there and got that out. I slid my fingers around again, and this little doo-hicky came out. It looks like...well... remeber the little stoppers in squirt guns? It looks like a tiny one of those. I slid my fingers around again, cause the water was still there, and I found two more doo-hickies. They didn't seem to be attached to anything, they were just wedged down there. I don't know if they were supposed to be there, or if they came off something else. So, now my sink has a few dirty dishes in it, my dishwasher has two inches of water in it, and I have three doo-hickies lined up on my kitchen counter.

Last week I broke the closet door in the school room. The Jedi fixed it, and never said a word. I'm thinking he might not be too pleased with my doo-hicky story though. I'm contemplating running the dishwasher through a quick cycle before he comes home just to see what will happen. Maybe all the water will drain out after all.

Maybe I'll just go back to listening to teeth.

Just like college

Or high school either for that matter. On Wednesdays, I have a women's bible study and prayer group that I attend. We take turns watching little ones in the nursery so that the rest of us can meet together and do a Bible study and have a prayer circle. I really really really appreciate this in the middle of my week. Its my sanity break. This spring we're doing a Beth Moore study called "Breaking Free". Now, Beth Moore is a wonderful speaker and author. This study has a video segment that goes with it each week, that we watch and discuss together. And it has a workbook with five days worth of homework....which is often material I find very interesting and insightful.

But.

You know its a true me story when the conjuction "but" enters the tale.

When we first decided to do this study, no.... let me back that up. When the workbooks were first available for this study, we had already overspent in the month and I decided to be financially responsible and wait until March to get a workbook. We weren't starting the study till March (since we had a couple of snowdays in February...or maybe we started on the last wednesday of February. If you really need to know, I guess you could pull out a calendar. If Feb 28th is a wednesday, that's when we started.)

So, I waited until the start of the class to get the workbook. And...guess what? The workbooks were sold out. The bookstore said they expected a shipment in on April 1st. I said, you meant March 1st, right? No. No. They meant April 1st. But, I could, they told me, place and individual order for a book, since those often shipped before the big group shipment. Fine. I did that.

Now, I didn't ask for the first week of the workbook to be photocopied for me. I think I was pouting instead. I did ask for the second week to be photocopied, and one of the women in the group did that and gave it to me. I, of course, didn't do it. Why? Not because I wasn't interested...but because I kept waiting, hoping that MY workbook would come in and that I could do the assignments in my workbook rather than on the photocopied pages.

It didn't come in.

So, now, it Tuesday. I've done three days of the five days during the course of the day. I have two more days to do. And I'm having flashbacks to all my years of schooling. Of course, I started it this morning instead of at bedtime or midnight....so I guess in that respect its different from my high school and college days.

Now, I could have taken this opportunity to share with you some of the really neat insights that are in the workbook so far...but I didn't. I'm not sure what that says. I think it says that I didn't really internalize any of the really cool insights.

Or it says, I just spent all day on the really cool insights, and can't possibly sum them all up. I will leave you with the coolest one though. End of Day two's session (which I wrapped up during lunch.)

The day begins with Isaiah 43:7 "Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made." The day is spent studying what does it mean 'created for his glory'? What does 'glory' mean in different contexts and scriptures in the Bible? But...here's the coolest part. The day concludes with John 17:9-10...where Jesus is praying to the Father at the last supper "I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them." Beth Moore writes "In this context, Christ used the word glory to indicate wealth and riches He had received. No matter where you are on this journey to the glorifying, liberated life in Chirst, you are His treasure."

And finally, there is a space at the end of each day to write either a prayer, or a response, or a summation of what was revealed through that day's study. Here is what I wrote, as if I could hear the Father speaking to me...

"Be still, little one. You are my beautiful one. My treasure. My lovely one. I delight in you. Be still. Do not be anxious or afraid. Let me lead. Take my hand and trust in me."

Blame Smurf

My newfound goal of blogging all the cool things that happened last week a bit at a time is out the window. Whose fault is this? Not mine. That would imply taking responsibility for my choices.

I spent the afternoon, and a portion of the evening on meez. So this is the picture that Smurf sent me that was the bait. Its Fawn.

The rest of the afternoon was spent recreating various rp characters as creepy little 3d dolls.