Hydrox and Kool-ade

Originally published in the Miami News-Record, June 14, 2015

I’ve been going to VBS pretty much my whole life, starting back at Hudson Creek Baptist Church in the late 1970’s up until present at Hart Baptist Church. I made my fair share of God’s eyes from popsicle sticks and yarn, cigar boxes covered in glued-on macaroni and spray painted to a lovely golden sheen, a Bible made out of a bar of soap and a piece of black velvet, and many other gems. It was at VBS where I learned the pledges to the American and Christian flags and the Bible. I have sung “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Father Abraham” more times than I can even fathom. There was nothing more fun in the eyes of the elementary school set back in my day than dividing the church down the middle and one side singing “Hallelu—Hallelu—Hallelu—Hallelujah!” and the other side echoing “PRAISE YE THE LORD!” Oh, and who can forget “Deep and Wide”?

When I was a kid, Ella Lou Reynolds was the church pianist and she took care of all the accompaniment needs of the church. There were no themes having to do with space, jungles, or beaches – just five days’ worth of stories about Jesus and you came up with your own songs. So after the giant hoard of children pestered the VBS director (usually my mom or Helen Merit) on the front steps of the church to pleeeeeeeeeeease let them be the one to hold the American flag during the pledges, everyone lined up and marched in with their class while Mrs. Reynolds played the “marching-in song”. Everyone filed in to their designated pews and participated in the pledges and their assigned songs: Pledge to the American flag paired with “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”, pledge to the Christian flag paired with “Onward Christian Soldiers”, and pledge to the Bible paired with “The B-I-B-L-E”. We awaited the “sit down chord” and then we were welcomed, informed, and encouraged. After the offering was taken up, the littler kids marched out (after the “stand-up chord” was played and the “marching-out” song was played) while the big kids were treated to a story about a missionary in the Congo or Brazil. You know, purely “big kid” type stuff because they didn’t fidget after sitting in the sanctuary too long.

I remember learning about Jesus walking on water, Zaccheus, Moses and the Ten Commandments, John the Baptist (and everyone always went “EWWWW” when the teacher said he ate grasshoppers), the names of all 12 apostles, and other Biblical wonders. Craft time was the creating of the treasures I mentioned above – things that would now make any good Pinterest-er cringe. Recreation was tag, leap frog, hide and seek, dodge ball, kick ball, or jump rope. There were no themed games like “Space Tag”, “Beachside Hide and Seek” or anything like that; just good ol’ smacking each other with plastic balls or getting whacked with a rope. And raise your hand if you’ve had a Styrofoam cup of red Kool-ade and ate a Hydrox cookie off a napkin in the church fellowship hall more than once in your life. Because if you grew up around here, that was the staple of every VBS snack time. Even visiting a friends’ VBS, no matter the denomination, we got the Hydrox/Kool-ade combo.

I have been student, teacher, and director in all my 42 years. I have an allergy to red dye, so my Kool-ade drinking days are over, but I still love a good Hydrox cookie every now and then – especially off of a napkin in the fellowship hall. And just last week I caught myself transported back to that old sanctuary at Hudson Creek Baptist Church as I heard the words “No running in the sanctuary!” coming from my own mouth, not directed at me. VBS has changed a bit…..but I guess maybe it really hasn’t. As long as God’s love is the underlying theme, that’s what matters. 

Go.

We finished up school at the end of May and I patted myself on the back for surviving our first year of homeschooling and keeping all the children alive through it. They all learned something -- heck, even I learned a few things. They all learned some important life skills in the process, so world, there are three fewer idiots being sent out into the masses, courtesy of me. You are welcome.

Our summer started, as always, with Youth Camp in June. This was my third year to go with HCBC and Paul's second, but the difference this year was that we had our very own cabin! We had a cabin generously donated to us by a church that had disbanded. It's not fancy, needs some work and about 2000 more square feet, but it's OURS. We are one of the smallest churches in the association, but have one of the largest youth groups.

The summer that has been so very mild decided to show one big huzzah of heat....during the week the youth were at camp. The children had gone the week before and enjoyed temps in the 80's. We had one day during our week where it got up to 111*. Yeah. That was fun.

Our church held a Youth VBS this summer as well. As far as we know, we were only one of two churches in the association that had one and we heard that this year was the other church's last year to do it. We had no idea what to expect going into it, had no idea how the kids would react to what we had planned, had no idea if the things we had planned would work and really just prayed that God would show up and show off.

Oh, He did.

The theme was Go. Simply two letters and a period. Go. We had planned a mission for each day and a fun activity or outing for each evening. Pretty much nothing went as planned all week LOL. The first day our mission was to paint and clean at the homeless shelter in Miami. It rained all day long. Which blew our outing to Carousel Park in Joplin, a small amusement park with go carts and bumper cars, etc. We scrambled around for a Plan B, committed to it......and the sun came out. *sigh* We ended up not chancing a re-fire-up of  the rain and took the kids to see Despicable Me 2. They loved it.

That first day's mission was painting and cleaning and we were told they had about four hour's work to do, which is exactly what we needed. Except when you have 24 very willing and energetic teenagers doing four hour's work, it turns into about and hour and a half. There we were, doing things they didn't even ask us to do, just trying to come up with something to kill time and the pastor said, "We've got to find another mission! What do you have up your sleeve?" I made a quick call to my stepmom who just happened to be working that day and Plan B fell into place. We loaded up the kids in the church bus, told them we were taking them across town to the nursing home and a collective groan arose from the masses. I told them to remember Jesus talking about "the lease of these", a lesson we had covered in Sunday School and youth group just weeks before, and the entire attitude of the group changed.

We went over there thinking we'd kill an hour and then head back to the church. Our amazing wonderful stupendous fabulous youth group took to ministering to those elderly folks like a bunch of ducks to water. After two and a half hours, more than a few tears (from us, the kids and the residents), hilarious conversations, and about a dozen a capella hymns in the dining room, we practically dragged the kids out of the building amidst pleas of, "Please bring us back! Can we come back tomorrow?"

And just like that, our new nursing home ministry was born.

All from a Plan B.

I love it when God does stuff like that.

We did five days of mission work, from multiple nursing home visits to lawn mowing to cleaning the church, top to bottom, inside and out. One day, we got so busy working that we didn't even get to the fun outing in the evening and only one kids complained (but he was our resident complainer, so we ignored him). I have never seen a group of kids more dedicated to servanthood in God's name in my life.

Paul and I started in youth ministry three years ago. Out of the six kids we had at the time, two were ours, and most of them were only sixth graders we boosted up into the youth room just so we could say we even  had a youth group. Then soon six kids turned into ten, then 15 and now God has blessed us with a group of about 22 students. We may go as high as 25 on a Wednesday, but we usually hover around 20-22. People tell us we're doing a good job and we appreciate that, but really, we're just honored and blessed to even get to be a part of what God is doing. We haven't done anything more than go where He's lead and do what He's said. It's been amazing.

They aren't the same kids they were at the beginning of the summer. That is a really good thing. They were good kids before, but they are great kids now. Their whole attitudes have changed. They look for ways to serve others. That is a very rare thing with this generation of self-absorbed, duck-face-making, Instagram uploading, forty-leven selfie shots every day on Facebook kinda kids.

We had a hope when we started planning this youth VBS that, God willing, if the kids responded well we would start preparing them for a mission trip within a year or two. We now know that these kids are ready, willing and able. The Director of Missions, after hearing the stories about our kids, said he felt they were ready. We are now looking for a big mission trip opportunity and when I think about it, I literally get goosebumps and my insides feel like jello. God has something big in store for us, I just know it. We are seeking His will and I am so excited I can hardly see straight!

We've brought in another couple to help us with our ever-growing group of students and so far they are a perfect fit. The kids love them and it's giving us the support and back-up we've been desperately needing. We've been praying for over a year that God would send the perfect couple to our church and give them a heart for our kids. Not only did God send them, they have become our dearest friends. Their girls have been such blessings to us, they themselves have blessed us and bolstered us in so many ways. We took a vacation together, we've cried to each other (Well, that was pretty much just us women. As far as I know, the men haven't shared tears yet :)) and shared concerns, blessings, prayers and hallelujahs. Recently, they eased into the youth group and the kids embraced them with open arms.

If you are a praying person, we ask that you lift up our youth group. They are great kids, but still susceptible to the world's evils and temptations. School is starting and they will be getting busy and distracted. We just pray that the fire that was lit in them this summer doesn't go out when they enter the halls of their schools. Pray that they stay focused and diligent. Also pray that God sends us the right mission opportunity and things fall into place. We are confident He will, but it never hurts to have believers stand together and intercede.

God is just so very, very good.

“And then He told them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.’”  ~~ Mark 16:15

What, Me Worry?

I woke up worrying this morning. My heart and mind were heavy from the second I opened my eyes. Before I ever even got out of bed, I prayed. Even though God knows my concerns, needs and yes, worries, I went ahead and just, you know, reminded Him. These are legitimate needs, not wants.

As I shuffled into the living room to turn on the pellet stove, I again went to God and said, "You know, God, if You could just....help me out here....that'd be great." And on I continued with my worrying and figuring and mental evaluation of the situation. I even went to God again and said, "Hey, here....look at this....I have a solution for You!" but still I felt an unease in my heart, my soul. That was not the solution, apparently.

I got busy packing Paul's lunch, made some coffee, and I think I sighed about 20 times as I made his sandwiches. My feet felt like they were concrete blocks as I walked to the classroom to turn on the computer so I could get started on the kids' school sheets. I was still heavy-hearted and worried because all of my human solutions and suggestions felt stupid and inadequate and simply not solutions. As I flipped on the classroom light, then turned away from the light switch, my eyes, after adjusting to the light, went straight to the white board where my youngest child had written this:

It's been on the board for a few days now and I have noticed it and thought, "Aww, how sweet, Bug wrote a scripture," and wondered why.

Now I know why. It was for me. Today.

Those needs are still there, but I know that God is going to take care of it the way He sees fit. Not the way I see fit. He will supply all all my needs. He doesn't need my planning, suggestions and input because He already has this situation under control.

And I am trusting in that.

My Job

I am slowly stepping back into the blogging world and I gotta say, it's all good. I have been so absent from this thing I love the past year and I have missed it a crazy amount of much. I haven't written much of anything. That makes me sad. 

Paul and I are still very much involved in the youth ministry at our church. We have been blessed beyond measure and God has added roughly 15 new kids to our family. Thankfully our house usually holds them. Sometimes it's bodies everywhere, but that's okay. No one has complained yet. We're also swiftly outgrowing our room at the church and again, it's sometimes wall-to-wall bodies, but it will be okay. We'll get a new room when it's time. In the meantime, we just encourage the use of deodorant. 

Being in a ministry position we are virtually always under scrutiny. We are held to a higher standard in the eyes of the church simply because we have been entrusted with some pretty amazing students and funny, they don't want them all messed up and stuff. We have to try really hard to do the right thing, give the right words and set a good example. 

I am by no means a perfect person and my walk with God sometimes is a little more of a crooked stagger through the woods than a peaceful walk down the smooth road with Disney-esque woodland creatures frollicking and bursting into song. He never promised me - or any of us - perfection here on earth; He only promised us His love. Unconditional, undying, perfect Love. I do the best I can to live the way He wants me to and I think God appreciates my efforts. Ephesians 2:10 tells us we are His masterpiece and if He can view me in all my sin and imperfection as a masterpiece, I take value in that and just give it my best. I'm not always going to hit the mark. He knows that. I know that. It's a process. 

 As a teen I learned the phrase "Judge not, lest ye be judged." It was something thrown around by my peers when someone picked out their behavior and either got nasty and made it public or just decided to give a scathing opinion of one's previous weekend adventures or whatever someone deemed as inappropriate behavior or unacceptable acts. It was largely situational and mostly used as a retort. And let's be honest, teenagers judge. They are big-time egocentric and can justify virtually any behavior.......oh wait. 

That's not just teenagers. We all do it. We shouldn't. 

I like the way "The Message" translates Matthew 7:1. It is just plain and simple and it really speaks to me: 

"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment."

Ouch. 

 It's so easy to sit back and rain down judgment from our lofty heights when in all honesty, we have absolutely no idea what someone else is going through. 

Last night on Facebook I happened to catch a passive-aggressive comment on a friend's wall and because Facebook has made us all nosy stalkers, I went a'searching for what prompted the comment. Turns out, it was about Chick-fil-A. I do love me some Chick-fil-A. 

Best. 

Chicken. 

Evah. 

But it sent me on a Googling frenzy, trying to find out as much as I could about the chicken gurus who have my heart and my taste buds firmly in their grasp. Turns out, Dan Cathy, the president and COO of the company, made a comment about what a family "should" be and then everyone went all crazy with the judging. 

Now, don't leave me right here to go start formulating your scathing comment. Hear me out. 

I haven't requested a copy of Chick-fil-A's financials for the past 66 years, but from what I've read on the innerwebs, Chick-fil-A sends money to organizations that promote families. Traditional ones. Not "Suzy has two mommies" kind of families. Some folks on the internet view these organizations as anti-homosexual. Some view them as simply pro-traditional. I don't know anything about the alleged organizations' credos, values or programs. I also don't care. I'm not judging Chick-fil-A or Dan Cathy. 

I'm also not judging Suzy for having two mommies. 

Nor am I judging Suzy's two mommies. 

It clearly states in my Facebook profile that I am a "Southern Baptist, but the nonjudgmental kind" and I'm sticking to that. I attend a Southern Baptist church and am in student ministry in a Southern Baptist church, but folks, I am not here to judge you. Technically, I shouldn't and so, I won't. 

The Christian music group Casting Crowns has a song out right now on the airwaves entitled "Jesus, Friend of Sinners" and that song has nudged me from the first time I heard it. And by "nudged" I mean "it whacked me upside the head with a big ol' 2x4. 

"Jesus, Friend of sinners, the One whose writing in the sand, made the righteous turn away and the stones fall from their hands. Help us to remember....we are all the least of these. Let the memory of Your mercy bring Your people to their knees." 

"The least of these"? Like maybe....I dunno......sinners? A sinner? Like ...... ME? Because, guess what -- we're all sinners. 

John 8 tells the story of Jesus' writing in the sand. The Pharisees brought a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus and, while trying to trap Him into making a mistake, asked Him what should be done to her. Jewish law said they had to kill her by throwing rocks at her until she died. It was a very violent, personal form of execution. Jesus stooped down, wrote something in the dirt (we don't know what, the Bible doesn't say) and then stood to tell them all that the perfect ones could throw the first stones at her. He stooped to write in the dirt once more and when He stood up....funny, they had all gone away. Jesus asked the woman where they were and who condemned her. She replied, "No one."He said, "Neither do I."

It is not up to me to decide what is a perfect family. Or a perfect life. Good grief, sometimes I have trouble deciding what to fix for dinner, so why should I be allowed to decide anything about someone else's life? I can't. I won't. I'm not God. We will all stand before Him one day and be judged. I can't say I'm looking forward to that because, well.....I'm a sinner. It's my nature to sin. So why not just leave the judging to Him in His due time and in the meantime just love on everyone? If there was less judging and more loving, imagine what the world would be like.... 

I know, I know. Let's serve some wine to go with all the cheesiness. 

Seriously, though. My God is a God of love. Not hate. Westboro Baptist spews forth venomous hatred for those who don't conform to their skewed version of "religion". Regular people just trying to get through life think that is Christianity. The pro-life people blow up abortion clinics. The pro-choice people call the pro-life people bad names like "zealots" and "religious nutjobs". Chick-fil-A only recognizes daddy-mommy-2.4 children families.The folks in favor of gay marriage boycott Chick-fil-A.Divorcees are destined to hellfire and brimstone according to billboards up and down I-44 into Missouri. A woman without custody of her children is seen as a bad mother. Folks seen going into the liquor store, bar or casino on Saturday are looked down upon when they walk through the church doors, maybe in search of love and acceptance and a place they feel welcomed. The pregnant teenager is automatically a slut. A fat person is automatically dirty and lazy. A homeless person is deemed a drug addict. 

What happened to grace? Mercy? ........................ or what about love? 

The above-mentioned "Jesus, Friend of Sinners" also has a line that resounds through my head almost continually and has even louder since I started reading the Chick-fil-A stuff:

"Nobody knows what we're for, only what we're against when we judge the wounded. But if we put down the signs, cross over the line and love like You did..." 

Does anyone know or care what Dan Cathy is for? Or only what he is against? Right now, it would seem they only want to focus on the negative. He's probably a really okay guy. But he might punch kitten as a hobby. But see? I don't know him and I can't judge him. 

This girl has it down. She is quite a young lady. 

I am tired of seeing those I love judged, those I don't know judged or being judged myself. And please don't misinterpret my post today: I am not perfect. As a human, I find myself lapsing into judgment. It's that pesky sin thing. 

How many of us have hit the lock button on the car door when we stop at a stop light and see a man holding a cardboard that says, "Out of Work - Need Help". I've done it. You might have, too. Or maybe we give a disproving look to the woman taking a long time in the checkout lane because she has WIC vouchers or a food stamp card. Perhaps that exhausted mother with the young toddler currently throwing a humdinger of a fit in Walmart could really just use a word of encouragement rather than a look of judgment at her mothering skills. I want to be the person that gives that needed help, that smile, that encouragement. I'm trying. I want so badly to just love 'em like God does. Everyone. 

It's not my job to judge you, but it is my job to love you. And I'm taking my job seriously. I'm dropping my stones. I don't want to throw them. I can't. 

"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor." ~~ Matthew 7:1-5 (The Message)

End Of Days

I'm chilling in the recliner on this gloriously cloudy morning and got this crazy, itinerant urge to write. However, I am way too comfy (read: lazy) to get up and get the laptop, so writing in the iPad it is. Which means this will be a short post because typing on this thing makes me a wee bit stabby sometimes.

(By the way, honey, for Mother's Day I would really like a keyboard for the iPad.)

(And some Poppy Flower perfume by Coach.)

(I'll be happy with just the keyboard - I don't want you to have to get a second job just to buy the perfume.)

The kids are down to their last two weeks of school and I am down to my last two weeks of babysitting. I have mixed feelings about all of it.

This is the end of Abby's Freshman year, Sam's 7th grade year and Bug's 4th grade year. This is also their last year of public school. Yes, we are going to be homeschoolers next year -- a thought that both exhilarates, excites and scares the poop right outta me all all the same time. More than anything, the excitement is what reigns supreme - which is good, since having the poop scared out of oneself on a regular basis isn't desirable. For most of us. Who are normal.

About two years ago Paul and I both felt like homeschooling was in our future, but we didn't feel like we were ready to take the plunge. The desire was there, the commitment and confidence were not. We both felt like God wanted us to pray about it, but not act on it. There is currently another issue we feel urged to pray over, but not act in yet as well. Is God looking for obedience? Is He just prepping us? Making the way ready? I have no idea. We felt that way about homeschooling as well -- like that maybe it would never pan out, but yet we prayed. That is hard for me - to feel led one way, but to be told to wait. I'm a bit of a control freak. (Those who know me best are nodding right now.)

And then, what had been obstacles during these past two years of praying were just removed one at a time this year. When one would be taken care of my prayers would ask "Now?" Like a child who wants out of the car on a long road trip, I'd ask, "Are we there yet?" and the answer was still.....wait.

So we did. Then suddenly, there it was.......go.

And we did.

There remains one more "obstacle", which in the grand scheme of things is very minor, and God has given us peace about it - and permission to move ahead. So we are.

This week I will write and deliver the withdrawal letters to both principals and will probably cry when I hand over the one to the elementary principal. (The woman is amazing and worthy of admiration for her relationships with the kids and her constant work in making the elementary succeed.) This is the end of a 10 year relationship with Fairland Public School and of course, there's some sadness. Yet I can't help but get 27 kinds of excited at the same time.

And now that stabby feeling is coming over me because of typing on this minuscule on-screen keyboard and Conner just asked me to play Littlest Pet Shop with him. And since he's only mine for a few more weeks....I'm more than happy to.

Sleep Credit

Several years ago my mom sent my sister and me to Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. While it's normally attended by married couples who want to drastically change the way they utilize money in their household, thus changing their lives, neither of our husbands were up to the challenge at the time, so we two sisters went as a couple. I was doubtful I could impact our finances, seeing as how he wasn't attending the life-changing course with me and frankly, wasn't a supportive spouse in much of anything at that time, (I don't think he minds me saying that, either - he is fully aware of what a jackwagon he used to be.) but I went and I went hopefully.

It's a nine week course. By week four I had paid such close attention to what Dave had to say about the horrible decisions we had made and were making at the time that I had managed to spark a fire under Paul and we elminated $11,000 in debt by week five. We were selling things right and left - two boats (one big, one small, neither used anymore), furniture, knick knacks, clothes, several large pieces of junk and the kids were completely convinced they were next. We got all up in the "envelope system" and I proudly cut up five credit cards in front of the class during week five. My sister cut up 11.

After one serious mess-up two years later where I got a credit card unbeknownst to my husband and quickly ran up a large chunk of totally unacceptable debt, I 'fessed up to Paul, asked for forgiveness and he forgave. Whew. I got a part-time job to start paying off my mistake and within that year we were once again sans credit cards. The following winter we paid off my van and officially became debt-free.

DEBT. FREE. As in NO DEBT.

I felt good. I mean good. So good that the thought of a van payment now makes me nauseous. Had we been paying ourselves first (as Dave Ramsey advises) these past few years, buying a new van this spring wouldn't be a nauseating event and we'd be able to throw some cash around at the dealership and walk out with a new-to-us van and still no debt. However, we haven't exactly been paying ourselves. Heck, we've had a hard enough time paying the electric bill and phone bill this past year, so yeah, we just slacked. We will likely have a van payment in the next month or two, much to my chagrin.

I'm a born and raised Baptist. Tithing could easily be in any infant Baptist's early vocabulary, - right after "mama" and "dada" comes "tithe". It's usually preached from the pulpit and preached HARD. The Bible tells us to give 10%. Most people limit that to money, but I've since learned we're also required to give 10% of our time and talents as well. Yes, really. Not only should we give that 10% right off the top of the ol' paycheck, we should also be giving 2.4 hours of a 24 hour day to God. Along with 10% of our talents. Most of us don't. We may get the money thing down and forget the time and talents altogether. Or maybe it's easier for you to volunteer and pitch in rather than write that check. Regardless of where you fall, none of us do it like we should. I get the money one down well and time gets about half-billing. Talents? I fail.

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NOTE: I am not preaching nor judging, let me just say that outright, right here and now. This is my blog and I'm saying it how I feel. I'm not belittling or chiding, rebuking or scolding anyone. Hey, after my prolonged absences, you might wanna take what you're getting. :) I am merely writing today what God has put on my heart to write. Read it, maybe ponder it and either digest or spit out. Your choice.
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Before we moved out here to Diva Ranch we bought a new bedroom suite. Bed, dresser, chest, nightstands and new mattress/box springs combo. We crammed all that gigantic furniture into our itty bitty bedroom in our 800 square foot house in town and we were happy. We moved out here to a bigger house where our bedroom furniture fit better and we were happy. Then I got pregnant. We both gained weight. We both started getting older. Suddenly our mattress seemed to have one goal in mind - to kill us in our sleep by way of our spines. One quick mention of the demon mattress and a friend offered to give us one that was just sitting in storage. We took it with many thanks and it was a fine mattress. It's still a fine mattress. It's a Serta and is in great shape, but it is just not the mattress for us. Have I mentioned we're old and fat?

We started researching mattresses and were intrigued by the Sleep Number beds, but seeing as how we are snugglers and sleep side-by-side, touching, all night long, one of us would be sleeping on that hump in the middle and we aren't anxious to give up the snuggling, even for a good night's sleep. And, just a hunch here, but I'm pretty sure I would end up being the one on the demilitarized zone hump while Paul snoozed away in his sleep number-y paradise. And I might end up bitter. And grumpy. And no one wants me any grumpier than I already am.

So then we looked into the Tempur Pedic beds, but started hearing that they sleep hot and seeing as how I'm on that slippery slope to menopause and hot flashes and night sweats are some of my closest companions these days, I wasn't anxious to sleep on a bed I knew was going to raise my body temp by 452*. We decided to try a memory foam topper, around 4" deep, to see if we liked the foam. We figured even if we had to spend $100 or so, it was better than dropping a few thousand then discovering I was at a dangerously high risk of nocturnal sponataneous combustion. None of the Walmarts we visited had Queen sized toppers and on a whim we wheeled into the furniture store next to Walmart that had a gigantic banner plastered to the outside of the buildling advertising their Tempur Pedics. The salesperson immediately told us the horrors of foam toppers (and that they didn't carry them anyway, which he said with obvious disdain and disgust) and convinced us to try a full memory foam mattress. Lying on those Serta memory foam mattresses was just a gateway rest that led straight to the real Tempur Pedic mattresses. We should have known.

We laid on all three Tempur Pedics and the middle-of-the-road in firmness and price was the one we loved. He quoted us a price and offered us interest-free financing through 2013. We conferred and decided to finance it and pay it off with our income tax return. That wasn't necessarily a Dave Ramsey-esque line of thinking, but it worked in our minds. The salesman said he could give us a yes or no on financing in 7 minutes, so we filled out the necessary forms and then we waited. I prayed while we waited. I prayed that if this was something we really weren't supposed to do - go into debt, albeit temporarily - that it wouldn't go through.

And sure enough, we were denied. Paul was embarrassed. Especially after the salesman dismissed us rather rudely. Apparently, credit approval is how he bases the worthiness of humankind. I wasn't upset. I was disappointed, because that bed felt sooooooo good, but I also knew that God had a plan. Paul fumed all the way home from Joplin. He fussed over our dismissal and wondered at the reason we were denied. The next day I checked our credit. I couldn't get our score without paying, but I did check our credit and saw all the good and bad and ugly on the report. The credit cards were mostly good. Discover Card was bad. Bad bad bad bad BAD. But I knew that. Discover did some bad things for us and we to them. It got ugly. All of the vehicle loan accounts were reported good with no delinquencies.

When the letter came in the mail telling us why we were denied, we also got our credit score (for FREE  - so there's how to avoid that $14.95 fee to get it online. Just apply for credit and get denied!) and it's really pretty good. So why were we denied credit on that heavenly mattress?

Because we have had no recent accounts opened or closed.

Yessssssss. Success! We have successfully lived debt-free long enough to NOT HAVE ENOUGH CREDIT! We've had people tell us we're shooting ourselves in the foot by not having credit because then what if we need credit and can't get it? Well, we're counting on God to take care of us there. And we know He will. So there are no worries on our part regarding our credit - or lack thereof. Dave Ramsey has a credit score of zero. Ours will start going down and keep at it, this we know. We obeyed when God told us to live debt-free and now we are tithing and being blessed, we are saving up for the things we want and paying cash for them rather than using credit, we are trying very hard to truly have financial peace.

And a mere week after the denial letter came in the mail we got a phone call from a friend asking us if we'd like a memory foam mattress. For free. It's not a Tempur Pedic, but it's delightful and will hold us over until the time comes we have the cash to wheel and deal ourselves into a debt-free Tempur Pedic. And then? Man, are we gonna sleep easy.

Good-bye and .... Hello Again

I've been blogging since June 4, 2004, a fact I find hard to believe at times. I can't believe I've been blogging seven-and-a-half years. I look back at those early posts and I cringe. I was young and my kids were so little! My marriage was shaky at best and life was so much different that it is now. Now I'll soon be celebrating the last birthday of my 30's. I have two teenagers, my youngest is in her next-to-the-last year of elementary and my marriage is stronger than it has ever been.

My mom used to shake her head at the blog. She worried. Her early-morning television viewing showcased too many stories of women who had met someone on the internet and were then found months later, chopped into pieces and stuffed into 55-gallon drums, buried in some crazy's backyard. I guess she thought I had a bigger audience than I really did. Back in the beginning I shared a lot of personal information that, looking back, I should not have. I had a foul mouth and it spilled over into my writing. I trash-talked my husband and griped about everything. I wasn't a very positive person.

Fortunately, around 2008 I experienced a change in my life. While God has been a part of my life since birth and I have been a born-again Christian since I was seven, I certainly didn't act like He was a part of anything I did. In 2008 I rededicated my life and began an earnest attempt at living better, living right and doing everything for the glory of God. I undertook the painstaking process of removing all the f-bombs, s-words and other un-pretty words from the blog so as not to be a stumbling block to my children, the people who read my blog and mainly because I felt like I should.

A few years ago MySpace came on the scene and I got one. I spent a stupid amount of time changing my background, answering polls and searching for people I went to high school with. Then I heard about this Facebook thing and I wasn't intrigued in the least. I heard it was pretty utilitarian and you couldn't customize your page like you could with MySpace. For some reason, I liked the bling that went with having a page of "social media".  Then one day I caved and decided to check out Facebook.

That's when my blogging went to pot.

It's a time suck. It's a distraction in the worst way. It's addicting. And I'm finding....it's rarely used for good. I can sit here and say with a red face that I have literally wasted entire days doing nothing more than hanging around on Facebook. My kids were not paid attention to, my husband was ignored, my house was a wreck, we ate a lot of cereal for dinner and I became an observer to all of my 300+ friends' lives. For what?

Seriously. For what?

I have "friends" on my list who have literally made eye contact with me in Walmart and not spoken to me, turned the other way like I was invisible. It happened to me twice in one shopping trip. I have "friends" on my facebook who have started rumors about me. There are "friends" on Facebook who have trashed their "friends" while all their "friends" played judge and jury. Marriages have been ruined because of Zuckerberg's brain child. Lifelong friendships have been tossed aside because a "friend" smarted off on someone's wall and someone else got involved, whether invited or not. Lies are spread. Information is misconstrued. Jobs have literally been lost because of Facebook behavior. Facebook posts hold up in court, people. They hold up and they hold up bigtime.

We have become a society of passive-aggressive social idiots. We are losing the ability to communicate with one another face-to-face. The telephone took some of it away years ago. Email took more. Facebook is destroying it completely.

I've been threatening since Spring that I was going to delete my Facebook page. I decided to leave it until after my class reunion because, honestly, it was incredibly helpful in finding and communicating with classmates and putting together the reunion was made much easier. Then the reunion came and went and I kept my page. I have become increasingly more and more convicted about my use of Facebook lately and it weighs very heavily on me. I find myself more and more these days picking up my phone and calling people, even when Facebooking them would be easier. I also find myself loathing text messaging more and more every day, too.

We hide behind our devices. We avoid person-to-person contact. It's easier to be mean while typing than it is when we're standing in front of a person. We get involved in arguments and situations we should stay out of - and we would stay out of if we weren't sticking our noses in everyone's Facebook page.

I am a youth leader in my church. The kids in our youth group, save four, have Facebook pages. Sure, it's very easy to communicate with them through the site, but it's not worth it. I have their phone numbers. I know where they live. I don't need Facebook.

So I still have my account active for right now. I set up a page for our church awhile back and post things to it, but I'm thinking the pastor is internet-savvy enough he can do those updates as needed. The clock is ticking and soon.... I will be Facebook-free.

And I will not miss it.

I have, however, missed my blog. I've missed writing in general. I've missed out on a lot. I might miss out on some information, I might miss out on some news, but I will also miss out on the drama. That seems incredibly refreshing at this point.

I will miss my Farmville, though. I'll miss my imaginary cows and my imaginary crops and my imaginary pink tractor, but seriously? I have three kids and a husband who have been missing me more. They are real. They are mine. They are important. It's time to give up the thing keeping me from being as real as I need to be.

And who needs an imaginary farm when you have this?

And here it is....November

Back in May we left the church we had been attending for just over a year. We made a smooth transition to another church with nary a Sunday off. The church we attend now is the first church I ever attended as a toddler. It's a small country church and always has been small, even at its biggest. Some years have been better, some not so great, but the doors of the church never closed - even when just over a year ago, there were 10 people attending and five of those were the pastor and his family. Now we average 80-something in Sunday School and Wednesday night Bible study sees 65-70 people as a general rule.

I have always had a heart for youth and at every other church we have attended, was never used in that capacity (or any capacity for that matter, but I'm not bitter). I began to doubt the desire I felt God had put in me, began to think I had misinterpreted what I felt so deeply in my soul. All five of us were discouraged that we had left yet another church and felt like we were wandering aimlessly.

Enter Hudson Creek Baptist Church.

We started attending there mid-May and the third week of June I was packed up and headed for my first week of camp as a sponsor (that week was Children's Camp, grades 4-6). By the second week (Youth Camp, grades 7-12), the pastor was already talking about Paul and I taking over the youth group some time in the future. About three weeks after that, while standing in the LifeWay store with the pastor and his wife, waiting to pay for our purchases, the pastor looked at Paul and I and said, "Oh and by the way, you're going to start teaching the Youth Sunday School class, right?" It really wasn't a question, more of a statement, and Brother Jerry said it so assumingly that either the statement itself or the look on my face amused the clerk so much he laughed out loud.

And so it was decided - Paul and I had officially become the Youth leaders.

When the new church year started, we split the Youth kids out of the Older Children Sunday School class and moved into our teeny tiny room just off the church office with bright red (hideous) carpet, two cinder block and two paneled walls and an abandoned church pew from the old sanctuary. We had about 11 kids that first Sunday. We average about six now. But Wednesday and Sunday nights our Youth come crawling out the woodwork to see what crazy stuff we've cooked up for them to do, witness or be subjected to. We've since painted the room so it's less dismal and have added some posters, a bulletin board and a white board which is the focal point of the room and usually covered in grafitti, names, hearts, stars and declarations of God's love, written by these kids who can smell a dry erase marker a mile away and are inexplicably drawn to them.

We average 11 kids on Wednesday nights and have had as many as 17. We've thrown rubber ducks at each other in a game meant to illustrate focus. We've snorted at each other in an attempt to make our peers laugh. We've played some very violent games of Red Rover and Cat & Mouse tag. We've wandered a corn maze with 23 kids. Paul and I spent an hour one night paintstakingly emptying a can of Sprite of its contents without breaking the seal on the pop tab then refilling the can with Coke as an illustration on judging things and people from the outside. I also sucked the insides out of a Twinkie and refilled it with ketchup and mayonnaise for the same illustration. We discovered that, unlike my youth group when I was a teen, this particular group of teens does not enjoy a rousing game of "King Frog", which leaves us scratching our head and wondering WHY? because, dudes, that game rocks. We've played many a "Minute to Win It" game. We've stayed up all night at a lock-in and plan on doing it again on New Year's Eve. We've answered texts asking for prayer after Midnight. We've listened to kids cry, gripe, whine, complain and argue. We've had our hearts broken by their disrespectfulness. We've laughed until our stomachs hurt. We've taught the unfailing, inerrant Word of God and learned many things in the process. We've opened our home to any number of them on any given weekend. We've been invited into their lives, something we've learned is an act of highest honor to a teen. We've taken the "Sword Drills" of old and turned them into Bible Trivia Smack Challenge: Extreme Church Edition. We've watched more football games this year than we have in all of our years of marriage because with a couple football players, three band members, a couple of cheerleaders and some on the dance team, we show up to see "our" kids do their thing. We've gone the cafeteria to eat lunch with them a few times, reliving our days of cafeteria corn dogs, cold tater tots and cartons of milk. We've been frustrated beyond measure, cried many tears, laughed at their antics, gotten more hugs and "thank you's" than we ever dreamed and even though yes, we have had times of doubt still that maybe we'd misinterpreted the calling, God quickly shows us that we are right where we are supposed to be.

It's exhausting. It's time-consuming. It's frustrating. It's difficult. It's fun. It's hilarious. It's rewarding. It's .....

It's one of the best things God has ever allowed us to do.

So when I break the cardinal rule of blogging and give excuse for my lack of posting and frequent absences, just know I think of you often, Constant Reader, and know that you're still out there somewhere. Hopefully your patience hasn't worn too thin. I am doing my best to find a balance for everything in my life right now - Christian, wife, mother, Youth Leader, Independent Sales Consultant for Thirty-One, babysitter extraordinaire and anything else my kids and husband throw my way. We're gearing up for our display at the Park of Lights (after a year off). We're trying to schedule our many family holiday gatherings and dinners. And somewhere in there I have to sleep. Some nights that works better than others.

I write a lot of blog posts in my head as I'm shuffling laundry from one machine to the other, while I'm scrubbing the soap scum from the shower walls and driving from one end of the county to the other, but when I finally get a moment to sit down....writing them with my actual fingers slips away as does my consciousness.....

.....but I'm working on it.

This is the Stuff

The life of a stay-at-home mom is not for the faint of heart. When your children are infants you yearn for the voice of another who isn't screaming to be fed, changed or burped and doesn't want to suck on a couple of your appendages. When your children are toddlers you yearn for the voice of another who isn't screaming NO! to every plea, request or bribe. When they are preschoolers you just want to hear someone NOT ask you question after question after question about poop or the color of the sky. And then they go off to school.....and if you're me, you start all over by babysitting.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I do and I dearly love staying home what with me being anti-social and all, but there are still days that the crazy starts to creep in.

Thursday night is Paul's golf night and I'm totally okay with that. I value my "me" time and I respect his desire to go walk around with his friends on a lush green pasture whacking at a tiny ball with a skinny pole. Usually he goes with his work friends and is home by 8 or 8:30, but this week he went with the men of the church and you know how Baptists are - they had to eat afterwards because Baptists think it's not fellowship unless there is eating. He didn't get home until 10. Normally I would still be up then, but I've been fighting off a weird stomach virus this week and just didn't feel well, so I was in bed when he got home. I had spent the whole day parked in my chair because I didn't have the energy for much else and rather than be unproductive, I started scheduling activities for the church youth group. I did so without any counsel from my fellow youth leader (Paul) or the pastor, so I was a little worried I had made flawed plans and hadn't taken into consideration some such other activity or event.

As soon as I woke him up Friday morning I kind of barraged him with talking. Looking back, this was a bad decision and I shouldn't have said all. those. words. so early in the morning, but I had spent all day Thursday feeling half sick while taking care of two three-year-olds (okay, so they watched a lot of Disney Junior that day) and had only seen him for about 10 minutes between him getting home from work and leaving for golf. I enjoy our usual after work conversations and frankly, I miss him all day while he's at work. I had a lot of things to say! Imagine how quickly my chirpy, caffeine-fueled chattering got under his skin and he told me to just please stop moving my mouth and allowing words to come out. Then when I didn't, he just shut down and ignored me altogether. Then I got my feelings hurt. Then he told me to quit being so sensitive and get off his back. Then I started crying. Then he stomped out the front door and slammed it behind him. Then I started crying harder. Then he drove off. Then I got mad and called his phone. Then he didn't answer it.

Soon after that my newest babysitting ward, Mary, arrived in full-scale three-year-old diva mode, bawling her face off while her father tried so sweetly to tame the savage girl-beast he was carrying. I totally related to her and was pretty close to a diva meltdown of my own. She eventually mellowed and her daddy felt like my safety and well-being wasn't going to be endangered by that of his youngest offspring and he left. Shortly after that Conner arrived and brought yogurt parfaits, thus further soothing Mary and myself (because I didn't have to fix breakfast!). I was feeling pretty confident that even though the morning had started off a little rough, it was going to be just fine. We were out of dog food for our swiftly growing German Shepherd pups and the plan had been to go to town and pick up a 740,439 pound bag of food because that's roughly how much those beasts eat in a week, a few groceries and be home by lunch time.

I called Mom to see if I could print off a few things for my Sunday School lesson and was given the go-ahead to stop by the house when I got to town. Oh yeah, I had the morning under control. In the short 45 minutes that had elapsed from the end of breakfast to that particular moment, Conner and Mary had managed to empty the toy box, Lego box and Hot Wheels box into the living room floor, so I told them to clean up quickly so we could go to Walmart. They both gasped in excitement and turned to, what I thought was, clean up. I grinned smugly to myself that oh yeah, I was doing great. I hurried to the bathroom to finish my makeup and while doing so heard the sounds of toys hitting plastic and three-year-old conversation. I assumed they were doing as I had instructed.

Silly me. They're three. Duh.

I finished my makeup, gave my hair one final spritz of hairspray and exited the bathroom only to see WHAT?!?! HOW DID THEY GET MORE TOYS OUT??? I thought they had already gotten out all there had been to GET out!! Did the toys somehow multiply? My living room looked like Santa's Workshop had vomited onto my living room carpet. I said, "Conner! Mary! Didn't Kiki tell you to clean up your toys so we could go to town?" They both nodded. I continued, "So why did you not do it?" Conner shrugged and said, "We didn't want to," and turned back to his Lego tower. Oh no he di-n't. I gently informed them that it wasn't really an option to which they resolutely ignored me and continued playing. I literally had to get all up in their faces and again, gently explain, clean up or else. Not sure what "or else" would entail, but fortunately they didn't try me. They understood I meant business at that point.

Then I discovered Conner had wet his pants. Wardrobe change. Tears.

Sigh.

As I was buckling Mary into her seat while Conner kicked up dust in the driveway even after I told him to get. in. the. dadgum. van. my phone rang and it was the school's number. Lovely. It was Abby telling me she had gotten a mosquito bite in Ag and it was swollen. Ooookay? My silence prompted her to continue, "No, Momma, you don't understand! It's REALLY swollen! Like, Ms. Tina even TOLD me to call you! It's HUGE!" I sighed and said I would bring her a Benadryl. I dusted Conner off from the self-inflicted dust storm and loaded him in, his butt hitting the seat and poufing up more dust. Usually I park right by the door of the high school and just run in when I have business in the office, but there was no parking by the door, so I had to unbuckle both kids and herd them into the building.

Sure enough, Abby's mosquito bite was about the diameter of a nectarine. She is allergic to them anyway and always reacts with huge welts, but this went beyond ridiculous. I marked the edges with an ink pen and told her that if it got bigger after the Benadryl to call me.

After re-buckling both kids we headed to town. I went through Sonic because at that point I needed a sweet tea. It wasn't until I was nearly to Walmart that I took the first swig to find it was about the strength of water. With a hint of sugar. Grrrr.

Sam has taken on this gigantic growth spurt as of late and is outgrowing clothes as fast as we buy them. He is currently jeans-less and since we are still holding out hope that eventually the weather will stop being quite so hellish here in Oklahoma, I figure it's time to buy him some. Yeah, you try buying jeans for a swiftly growing almost-13-year-old without him being with you. Not easy. As I was searching a rack for the ever-mysterious boy's size 18 of which only three pair are made in each style and each one of those three are sent to separate stores approximately 1300 miles apart, I hear this little voice go, "Kiki? Mary frew up."

*blink blink*

I quickly ran to the front of the cart to see Mary looking up at me with her big blue eyes, hands in her lap, certainly not looking like she had just "frew up". I said, "Mary, sweetie? Where did you throw up?" She pointed down. I looked under the cart. No barf. I said, "Mary, honey, where were you when you threw up?" She said, "I am sitting in the cart, silly." I said, "No, honey, the cart was moving....were we here when you threw up or over there?" and pointed to the boys clothing section. She shook her head. I continued looking around for this phantom puke. Then I heard her giggle. Then I heard Conner giggle. I put my hands on my hips and said, "Guys.....are you pretending to throw up?" They both busted up and then Conner grabbed his belly and said, "OOOOOH I'M GONNA FROW UP!" Well, I was in on the joke at that point, but those shopping around me all looked up in absolute freak-outed-ness at his very loud proclamation. I just grimaced and said, "No, no, no....they're pretending." Old women shook their heads and did not appreciate the imaginative play of my little darlings.

I continued to shop, fielding strange looks as they continued to "frow up" throughout the store. But when we got to the produce aisle it was then that Mary demanded popcorn chicken. I said, "No, sweetie, no popcorn chicken. We'll go back to Kiki's house and have lunch." Her requests got louder. Conner, not to be outdone, joined in. The cries of frowing up changed into yells of  "WE-WANT-POP-CORN-CHICK-KEN!" I firmly said no. They yelled louder. And louder. I then walked to the front of the cart where I could see their darling faces and said, "You are not speaking kindly. You are not asking nicely. You are yelling and you are being rude. You will not get popcorn chicken. Ever." Yes, it was an empty threat since their parents may probably someday feed them popcorn chicken, but I had suddenly turned into "that mother" in Walmart and neither of them were actually my children. People were staring. It was after my lecture that they both promptly busted into cries of, "BUT WE'RE HUNNNNNNNGGGGRRRRYYYYYYYY! Feeeeeeeeeeed ussssssss!"

It was then that the kind man stocking the bananas gave them each one in an attempt to make the screams stop because I'm pretty sure the Walmart police were getting ready to swoop in on me and either escort me out or call DHS because I was apparently starving the children.

We made it to the checkout line where the Associate said the words "d*mn" and "h*ll" three times apiece while checking out the woman in line ahead of me. In her defense, the other woman was saying them as well. I guess she felt peer pressure. I just felt annoyed.

I had to remove the kids from the cart because the groceries and plastic bags would've suffocated them and yes, while that would've made them significantly quieter, it's just a hassle to explain to their parents and the police. I threatened them that if they removed their tiny little hands from the carts that kittens all over the world would die. Actually, I did not say that, so please don't call DHS. I just told them that Kiki really needed them to touch the cart and to do what I said. I think they noticed the tic just under my right eye and they complied.

After some jackwagon barreled through the parking lot and nearly broad-sided me, I made it out onto the road. The kids were being incredibly quiet and I felt bad for the whole "we're hungry" pleas in Walmart and we had been shopping a long time, so I wheeled into McDonald's for Happy Meals. Again with the demanding of food. I quietly told them that when they could ask for their food the right way, they could have it. They both crossed their arms and pouted. Two peas in a pod, I'm telling you. I just drove on. They just continued to pout. I was okay with that. Finally, at the edge of town, I heard two tiny voices asking so sweetly for food. I was happy to pull over and comply.

By the time we got home they were fed and happy once more. I deposited them both at the table to finish up their apples and went out to unload the car. The dogs could apparently smell the Puppy Chow through the van windows, so they and the cats attacked me as I walked to the van. After kicking them all away I managed to get the dog food open and dumped some out onto the ground (who needs bowls) and then unloaded the groceries. I cleaned Mary and Conner up, took them both the potty and then told them to get their nap towels and blankets.

They wanted to watch Little Bear. I said no. They were already 30 minutes past naptime. They cried. I said they could watch Little Bear after nap. They threw themselves onto the floor. I said, "Fabulous. You're already on the floor for nap. Sweet dreams." I handed them their blankets, kissed them both and walked into the kitchen. Strangely enough, they both went right to sleep.

It was after I finally had the groceries put up and the kids were softly snoring their adorable little preschooler snores that I sat down and found myself humming this song:

Thank you, God, for the reminder.

Two Weeks of Sweat and Blessings

The third week of June my three kids and I packed up half the house and headed to Grand Lake Baptist Assembly in Grove, OK, for a week of Children's Camp. I was going as the girls' sponsor and while Abby was technically too old and Kady was technically too young, Sam was just the right age (this was his last year at Children's Camp, though). My nephew, TotTwo, also went that week. Given my pops' recent health problems I didn't want to burden Mom and Pops with taking care of two extra kids for the week, so Kady went as a "junior camper" and Abby went as a "junior sponsor". We all loaded up my van to nearly bursting and left Paul here to hold down the fort.

All together, including sponsor's kids, we had 11 girls and six boys. Some were from our church, some were from the church whose cabin we were using. The girl's dorm was positively brimming over with estrogen and drama, but what a wonderful group of girls they were! As it has always been, I was the cabin hair stylist, spending a good chunk of every day braiding, French braiding or fishbone braiding someone's hair. I also spent a good deal of time hollering the words "SHUT THE DOOR!" Our pastor, Jerry, and his wife, Nickie, and Melissa, another female sponsor, said it, too, just not with the same volume I did. I definitely had the best lungs in the group. The girls called me Camp Nazi. I took it as a term of endearment whether they meant it that way or not.

There is something positively awe-inspiring in an open-air Tabernacle full of boys and girls singing and clapping and praising God. No matter how many times I go to camp, I will never get over that. Three girls in our cabin accepted Salvation that week. Hallelujah! There was only one truly miserable evening in the Tabernacle when the wind decided to not blow, but the rest of the week was hot, but not too hot. The band was a string trio and the pastor was Royce Railey, a professional bass fisherman who really knew how to get the kids' attention.

Thursday night was the last night in camp and the boys had teased the girls all day about "prank night", so when it came time for bed the girls asked if we could push a bed in front of the door to ensure our safety from all pranky-ness. I had no problem with that at all. I do not enjoy pranks, doing them or being the subject of them. The door securely barricaded, I hollered for lights out and told the girls to get quiet, but they had a problem with the fact that there was SO. MUCH. NOISE. coming from the boys dorm. Considering Jerry and I hadn't really discussed enforcement of lights out or noise reduction that final night I figured well, he's the pastor and followed his lead. I then told the girls I was tired and was going to sleep and as long as they stayed in our dorm and kept the noise to a minimum they didn't have to sleep. They were giggling and talking and bouncing and giggling and giggling and giggling and I was just about to doze off when we heard WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM on the front door of the cabin.

All motion and noise stopped instantaneously. Then again WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM on the door. Immediately girls who were not in their own beds dove for their own in the dark. All I could hear was heavy breathing. I also didn't move because, hey, I was tired and snuggled in. I figured Jerry would answer the door seeing how he's a man and all. Then again with the banging, only seemingly louder this time. The girls started stage whispering "Kristin! Do you hear that?" Well, DUH, girls. I said, "I do, but I'm letting Jerry deal with it. If it's security, he'll smooth it over with them." Quiet reigned once more.

WHAM WHAM WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM!!!!!!!

I was more than perturbed at Jerry for not handling the situation and wasn't at all excited about greeting a security guard at church camp with no bra on, but with the whamming still continuing I didn't have time for a support garment. I had one of the girls help me move the bed blocking the door and out I stomped to the commons area. I flipped on the inside and porch light to see not a security guard, but OUR PASTOR.

No wonder the boys had been so noisy on their side! They were un-chaperoned!

I unlocked the door and opened it to the greeting of  "WOMAN! YOU LOCKED ME OUT OF OUR CABIN!"

We both got completely tickled as I told him how he had scared our poor girls nearly to death and how I had begun doubting his chaperoning skills as the noise from the boys dorm grew louder and rowdier as time went on. Ahhh....communication.

We left camp around 9 that Friday morning and took the kids to McDonald's for breakfast. We were bordering on Duggar status escorting that many kids into a fast food restaurant. The boisterousness from the night before had all but dissipated and they ate in relative silence and we adults were thankful for that.

The kids and I got home and dumped all camp laundry into the living floor, divided it into 15 loads and then I started running them all through the shower so they could scrub off a week's worth of dust, grime, goo and sweat without having to wear shower shoes. There is nothing quite like that first post-camp shower.  By 5pm I had all but the sheets washed and re-packed because Abby, Sam and I were heading back to camp on Monday for Youth Camp. Kady stayed with Mom and Pops that next week because that first week had just worn her little junior camper self out. Also, knowing the temperatures were forecast to be in the 100's by mid-week, I figured she needed to stay where there was ample air condidtioning.

Monday afternoon we headed back to the cabin and greeted the other sponsors doing a second week with a hearty "WELCOME HOME!" This time we had three boys and five girls in our cabin, some ours, some the other church's- considerably a smaller group than the week before. We were okay with that.

Praise and Worship at Youth Camp is also an even more awe-inspiring event because those youth just get all kinds of crazy with the worship. It thrills my heart to see them abandon "cool-ness" to praise their God holding nothing back. The band was Ryland Russel and his band. A-MAZE-ING group of guys who just knew how to play what the kids (and sponsors) needed in order to worship God. The camp pastor was Eric Hovind, aka Dr. Dino, with Creation Science Evangelism. His mission is to prove God and Creationism and disprove evolution. It was enlightening to say the least. There were times I thought my brain was going the explode from all the information he presented.

One girls accepted Salvation and I am so proud and joyous to say that it was my darling niece, TotOne! Talk about a happy family last week!

The temps soared and kids were sunburned, tired and very, very dirty. Recreation involved blood, sweat and tears and that camp nurse was kept hopping. Most of our kids just hit the pool and tried to stay cool there. It was simply an amazing week. Exhausting....but amazing.

I am so thankful for where I am in life and that I am blessed with the time and ability to take two weeks and go to camp with these kids. They are the future of our churches and they have so much to offer. I get my socks just blessed right off when I'm around them. They are hungry to learn, but also teach me in the process. I am so excited at where our little church is headed and how it is growing! God is so good and loves us so much it's just ..... well, it's just awesome.

A Scary Week

Sunday after church we came home to eat a bite of lunch then drove into town to an auction Mom was working. The kids wanted to go to Joplin to shop, but thank God Paul and I both felt that with the weather being iffy and storms forecasted to move in that evening we decided not to. We are totally big chickens when it comes to weather and don't stray too far from the 'fraidy hole when we know it's likely to get bad. We didn't even go to church that night, however Mom and Dad did. I called her while they were driving toward the church (which is about 2.5 miles from our house) and said, "Keep your phone on silent if you need to, but keep it where you can see it go off. I will text you if we go under any warnings. It takes less than five minutes to get here, so be ready." She assured me she would, but seeing as how she thinks I'm a nervous Nelly with weather I figured she wouldn't heed my warnings.

Paul and I had the kids pack their 'nader bags and put them underground, then we settled in to watch the storms roll in. We were watching the local NBC affiliate when the tornado warning for Joplin was issued and were also watching the tower cam when the tornado appeared on the screen seemingly unbeknownst to even the newscasters on the air live. They were showing graphics of tornado safety tips and the radar, but when they popped it over to the tower cam even they were feeling the same shock and awe we were as we saw a HUGE tornado hitting the city of Joplin. We could see the flashes as it took out power poles. We all five sat in horror and watched it slowly destroy everything in its path. I happened to be on the phone with Sis, who lives in Yukon, OK, and I kept saying, "You don't understand! It's happening RIGHT NOW! Even Jeremiah Cook and Caitlin McCardle didn't know it was there and THEY'RE THE METEOROLOGISTS!" She hung up with me to call her ex because he was on his way back here to Miami with my niece and nephew at the time. They weren't in danger, but she wanted him to be aware of what was going on.

Our NOAA radio was about to wear itself out it was going off over and over with various t-storm watches and warnings, followed by tornado warnings right and left. I text Mom and told her it was getting bad and we were going to the cellar. I was on Facebook and saw where someone said there was a tornado on the ground in Fairland. We are about five miles north of Fairland. That was when I called Mom. In church. She answered in a whisper and I said, "WHERE ARE YOU?" She said, "Hudson Creek. At church. Why?" I said, "Mom, I just heard there is a tornado on the ground in Fairland. Y'all need to take cover NOW."  Mom interrupted the preacher and told him. He said, "Oh. Okay, well, we should probably stop what we're doing then." About that time a first responder's radio went off and he ran out the door. He came back in moments later and said the tornado was in Ketchum, not Fairland, so the threat was somewhat less, but still imminent. They prayed and dismissed. Mom and Dad came here right after we came up from the cellar. We went in the house and watched in horror as the first pictures from Joplin started coming in.

Mike Bettes, with the Weather Channel, has been doing his Great Tornado Hunt this past week and drove into Joplin on the heels of the devastating twister. When a seasoned, veteran meterologist is rendered speechless and cries shamelessly on camera surveying the devastation and horror you know it's bad. We sat and cried as we saw the town we knew so well was now completely unrecognizeable. The surreality of it was stunning.

Monday we woke up to rain and the rain wouldn't stop. It rained so hard our main pond here at the ranch overflowed its banks and then some. Our driveway washed out to where I wasn't sure my van wouldn't get lost in it. Sam was supposed to go to basketball camp that morning, but his coach called me to see what I thought and also reassured me that they would take the kids to the safe room at the slightest hint of anything severe. It eased my mind and I decided to go ahead and take him. Then about 30 minutes later as I'm running my three kids and Conner to the cellar because there is rotation over my house, I text Coach and said we wouldn't be there. He already had kids in the safe room. By noon, the severe threat was over, however the rain just kept coming. I decided to go ahead and send Kady to the afternoon girls session of basketball camp and Sam stayed with her. At 12:30 the water was over our dirt road, but still passable. By 2:30 when Abby, Conner and I left the house to pick them up it was so high it was up the bottoms of the van doors. I called Paul and said, "You should probably come home as soon as you can. We're going to be flooded in soon." I turned out onto the highway and made it nearly a mile to the low water bridge and watched a car stall out trying to go through. I turned around and made a frantic call to my mother: "MY KIDS ARE IN FAIRLAND AND I CANNOT GET TO THEM!!" She tried to direct me down other dirt roads, but my van sits so low I didn't dare chance anything. I called Chad, Conner's daddy, and asked if he could get to the kids. He said he could and that he thought he could get through the low water bridge, too, seeing as how he drives a big ol' Dodge. Paul called to say he was in his Thunderbird and could I call Chad to see if he could wait for him, too? Poor Chad ran a taxi service that day, ferrying wandering Hoovers home. The Highway Department closed the low water bridge just as they got there and after an hour and a half of driving around trying to find passable roads, they made it here.

Miami canceled school the following day because of the widespread flooding and threat of severe weather the following day (Tuesday). By morning we were completely flooded in, so Courtney couldn't have made it anyway. Paul couldn't get out to go to work. By noon the rain had stopped, allowing the water to recede enough that we could get back into Fairland to pick up Paul's car, so we took Kady to afternoon ball camp and Paul spent the afternoon repairing our poor driveway while Abby, Sam and I put as much valuable stuff as we could fit into the cellar. We've made many a run to the ol' 'fraidy hole, but this past Tuesday was the first day I put baby pictures, the deed to the house and other important documents down there. I went to Paul and said, "The box isn't that big and if you think there is room, can you help me put the box of the kids' baby pictures in the cellar?" He got a mischievous grin on his face and started to make a joke. Then I busted into tears and said, "Paul, I'm scared. Please don't." He grabbed my hand and said, "Baby, go get the box. We'll get those pictures underground." We were completely and fully prepared to be blown away. The anticipation was horrible and I clenched my jaw so hard all day I was pretty sure my teeth were in danger of breaking. After picking Kady up from camp we just sat and waited, flipping the TV back and forth between local channels and TWC.

They closed the Canadian County courthouse early, which is where Tater works. She and her husband work in El Reno and live in Yukon and had planned to ride out the storm in their guest bathroom, but as they saw it making a path for El Reno they decided to head into the City where they rode out the storms in an underground parking garage. El Reno was hit and five were killed.

Back in the old days you ran for cover from the tornado when you saw it lifting off the neighbor's cows and silo, today we are given 24 hours warning, which is by all means a good thing, but still nerve-wracking. We went down into the cellar twice that night. Fortunately the storms didn't hit here like they did around us. Welch got some wicked winds, Grove had some tornados over the lake, but we managed to get by with some minor rain, moderate winds and not even a single hail stone. Praise God!

Today Paul is in Joplin helping some of his family's family empty what's left of their elderly uncle's house. The man is 97 years old and the house is demolished. The things left inside have been subject to theft the past few days. They are working furiously to empty what they can to keep the heartless looters away. I don't understand how people can be so low and I try to focus on the good I've seen coming to Joplin rather than the scammers and looters and heartless evildoers who plan to picket the town for their "wickedness" that caused the tornado. I try to think about the Tide Loads of Hope truck, the Duracell truck, the fact that Sam's Club is allowing anyone to shop there without membership, about the $1 million each that Home Depot, Walmart and Tamko Industries has donated to the cause, the KC Chiefs players who are clearing yards, the little girl in Texas who is sending her own personal belongings to Joplin, the doctors, nurses, firefighters, police officers and volunteers who are working tirelessly.

I pray and praise God in the midst of it all. I am very detached from it really, and everyone says seeing it in person is so much worse than what you see on TV and the internet. I hug my kids a little tighter. I am thankful. I am sad. I am proud. I am hopeful.

Stoner (Part 2)

I made it to the hospital that Thursday morning by about 5 after 7, kissed my swollen and puffy husband's face then settled in with my iPod to partake of free WiFi while we waited for the Surgery nurses, also known to kidney stone patients as Angels of Mercy. Paul told me he had had a bad two hours during the night when the stone was trying to move again and he maxed out on pain meds and commenced to doing the Funky Chicken all over the room. His nighttime nurse was a Godsend and he said he's forever grateful to her. It must've been bad.

It was after 8 when the two gals from surgery came up, got his IV unhooked from the pump, put his cute little bootie socks on his feet and it was just as she pushed the Versed in his veins to make him a little groggy before they took him downstairs they realized he still had his Bermuda shorts on under his gown. (Dude is a little bit modest and said he didn't like his "junk" out there all flappin' in the breeze, so he wore his underwears and Bermudas under his gown. He is just precious.) The girls kind of giggled and said, "We'll step behind the curtain so you can slip everything off." I stepped over to the side of the bed to hold his IV line out of the way and quickly realized my husband was absolutely 100% drunk out of his ever-lovin' MIND already. We're talkin' like two minutes. I gently moved his hands from the zipper where he was trying to repeatedly unzip his already unzipped shorts and kept saying, "Come on, honey. Help me out here." I heard giggling from behind the curtain. I was not amused. Okay, I was kind of amused. I said, "Uhm....girls.....he's plumb goofy, could I get some help?" Just more giggles. So finally after several more minutes of me trying to get him to lift his rump I managed to get the Bermudas off him. I left the underwear for the team of professionals downstairs. I figured they were getting paid the big bucks, let them lift his rump from that point on.

I kissed his forehead and gathered my things from around the room and went down to the surgery waiting room. I checked what was going on around Facebook, glimpsed quickly at Twitter, but it was reading Testify Blog that soothed me and passed the time for me without nerves. About 30 minutes after they took him I saw Dr. Stout come around the corner. He sat down next to me and bluntly said, "I couldn't get it." I love this guy. Most of the time when you see him he looks like Paul Bunyan, usually with a full beard and a lot of hair (on his head and all over his body) and sometimes he wears flannel. In the office. He played the oldest brother, Ruben, in the local little theater's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat a few weeks ago. He's just an all-around neat guy. So there he was in his surgery scrubs, sitting in the chair next to me like we were old friends catching up, all relaxed and laid back, explaining that the stone was too high, as he had thought it might be, while I sat on the edge of my seat in horror that this ordeal was not over yet. He also said that the kidney they thought was fine and not blocked, was indeed blocked and when he placed the stent....well, I shan't describe it here as he described it to me. Suffice it to say....YUCK and EWWWW. Then he reminded me that he was leaving the following afternoon for Boston and wasn't going to be in town until early the next week. Oh the tears that wanted to spill at that moment.

He said, "I can send him home with that stent in place and we can schedule a lithotripsy (where they bust up the stone with sound waves) for when I get back if that's okay with you." Well, I had no choice, huh? I nodded dumbly and looked at my hands, feeling helpless and worried and knowing that Paul was not going to do well in that scenario. Dr. Stout patted me on the leg and told me I could go on upstairs and wait for Paul there. As I gathered my things, I glanced down at my iPod where the post on Testify I had been reading had quoted the old hymn I recall Tennessee Earnie Ford singing when I was kid, "It Is Well With My Soul". I blinked back the tears, took a deep breath and as I walked the long hallway toward the elevators I prayed. God, you are in control of this. You are the Great Physician and I can't worry any more. You have this. I know it. Paul is in the palm of Your hand and You are in control. It truly is well with my soul.

And I made it to that empty hospital room with a renewed spirit and no worry. And moments after I sat down in that hard-backed chair to await my Prince Charming the room phone rang. The nurse aide came screeching into my room hollering, "ANSWER THAT! ANSWER THAT! IT'S DR. STOUT!" I said hello with trepidition - had something happened to Paul in those few short moments between then and now? I pushed the thought away and listened as Dr. Stout told me he had called Oklahoma City, pleaded the case, arranged for them to send the mobile lithotripsy unit up the following morning and the procedure was scheduled for 8am. There would be no waiting the weekend, no dismissal to home with the stone still there, no having to wonder if another urologist was available in Dr. Stout's absence.

Talk about God's favor!

I took Paul a long time to come around what with him being a sedation lightweight and all and as he had when he had his EGD procedure back in March, he had some temporary amnesia and asked me questions over and over and over. It's cute at first. It gets less cute after you answer the same question for the 27th time. He was groggy and nauseated, in a lot of pain and just generally grumpy when it finally hit him that the stone had not been rolled away, so to speak. He refused to eat that day. He was depressed. Peeing was excruciating for him. Watching him under all of it was excruciating for me. He had a lot of pain medication in him. He was intensely nauseated. They were pumping the IV fluids in him like crazy and there was very little output. He swelled up like a poisoned pup.

I went home that afternoon to get the kids off the bus, let them re-pack their bags for another school night sleepover at Gram's and said I'd take them to Sonic after going to see Daddy. Abby caught me off to the side as soon as we walked in the hospital room and said, "Why does  Daddy look like that? Why is his face so FAT?" That had to be startling and I assured her he was fine, just retaining a lot of fluids, like PMS on steroids. She giggled. They visited with him for awhile, then hunger got the best of them. After kisses good-bye we headed to Sonic. As I puilled in my father called and said the storms headed our way looked bad, to get the kids to shelter and forget Sonic. Yeah.....no. They needed food and Sonic is fast and close to Mom's. We made it to Mom's, flipped on the TV, watching the radar show the storm go around us. Mom and Dad were eating dinner and with the weather iffy I decided not the leave the kids alone. I took that time to put my feet up since they were swollen from sitting in that dang hard backed chair for two days.

Dad dropped Mom off at the house and headed up to see Paul and take him some magazines. I loved on my babies awhile longer, visited with Mom and then headed to the hospital myself. He was in the shower when I got there and seemed to be feeling better, probably knowing the end was near and he was 12 mere hours away from relief. I went home again that night to sleep alone, no Little Joe to protect me from the big, bad coyotes and panthers and bobcats out here in the woods, but I was so exhausted Fitty could've waltzed in and hacked me to bits without me ever knowing.

I was back to the hospital by 7 the next morning, things were very delayed and x-ray didn't come get him until after 8. They had no sooner gotten him in the elevator the anesthesiologist walked in. He looked around with a confused look on his face and said, "Uhm.....your husband? He would be.......where?" When I said x-ray had just taken him he said, "Come on, we'll go catch him" and whisked me off to the surgery elevator. We missed him by moments and waited patiently outside the x-ray room door. The anesthesiologist also laughed when he said he was only giving Paul a half dose of Versed this time since he was hit pretty hard by the full dose the day before. I rolled my eyes and said, "Don't I know. You ought to have been the one trying to take off his shorts while the surgery nurses laughed at you behind a curtain! That's blog material for sure!" He laughed then assured me he would take good care of him and headed for the OR. I got to kiss Paul's face before the other surgery guy (far less giggling from him) whisked him away, I met Dad in the hallway and we waited together this time. The hour and 15 minute wait was made far easier with him being there.

Finally Dr. Stout made his grand appearance with specimen cup in hand. He showed us a stone fragment that had already passed when the stent had been removed. It was about the width of an unsharpened pencil lead. Ow. He said he had also managed to bust up some of the stones that were in the proper position in the left kidney, thus hopefully eliminating a few episodes in the future. I thanked him for all his string-pulling, mad stone removal skillz and wished him safe travels on his road trip to Boston.

And thanked God the ordeal was over. And praised him for his goodness and mercy and healing.

Paul was awake, alert and HUNGRY when he got back to the room this time. The nurse aide brought him a sandwich because it was still and hour and a half until lunch trays would be there. He ate and acted more like himself than he had in four days. And he ate part of the lunch on his tray when it got there. He put on his Sooner pajama pants and OSU hat - he is an enigma, that man - and said he was ready to go HOME.

By 2pm we were heading home with three prescriptions for antibiotics, pain and nausea meds. Our kids were insanely happy we were both there when they got off the bus that time. We were, too.

____________________________

Fast forward to yesterday, one week after dismissal: Paul passsed SIX stones/fragments yesterday. They were all about the size of a match head. He never even knew he'd passed them until he saw them in the urinal. Talk about God's favor again. I can't fathom trying to pass something that size.

Sweet tea has not touched his lips since and he says it never will again. I doubt that. I mean, we live in Oklahoma, for cryin' out loud, that stuff is everywhere. He's been drinking a lot of water and since he heard lemonade helps to etch stones that are already formed, thus reducing them in size, he drinks a LOT of lemonade. Hey, I guess whatever floats his boat. Or his stones.