I'm Usually Better At My Job

See these kids?



They are my world. I'm their mommy. It's my full-time job.

And yesterday, I was pretty terrible at my job.

I didn't feel well (stupid garden, stupid apple, stupid snake, stupid Eve, therefore stupid cramps) and it rained all the live long day. Mary Emma slept with me the night before and I'm pretty sure she was training for a kick boxing event all night long. Camille was in a MOOD yesterday and Tait found a way to target that mood and drive Camille out of her mind. I didn't clean up the kitchen. The kids ate McDonalds for lunch and breakfast for dinner. The day was filled with fussing and time outs. I did manage to squeeze in a Bible Study, but I'm not sure it counted since I was yelling, "Girls, please leave Mommy alone and go play and BE QUIET so I can listen to Beth Moore!" at them. There's just something wrong about yelling during Bible Study.

The Bible Study was being a Wise Mom. Otherwise entitled I've Been a Terrible Mom Today And Need Some JESUS To Make Me a Better One Tomorrow. One thing that hit me square in the face was Beth talking about how fast they grow up.

Y'all, this will be over before I know it. I only get one shot at being a good mom. ONE. And. I. Will. Be. A. Better. One. Today. Than. I. Was. Yesterday.

Will I be perfect? No way. Far from it. But my girls will know that I love them more than anyone on this planet.

Because no one loves them like I do. And I will show them that today. They deserve it.

Well, This Was Definitely A Shock.

I haven't been feeling exactly "up to par" lately. I've been battling a stupid cold (not a bad one, just bad enough to be annoying) and have had very little energy.

But hello, everything, including the sidewalks and bricks, are blooming right now. Spencer sat outside on the back deck the other day and played on the computer for a while and was constantly wiping the pollen off the screen.

I sat on my front porch 2 days ago and watched bees flying around the big holly tree and could actually see the harvested pollen on their legs. Jeff Corwin's got nothing on my front yard.

Anyhoo, no amount of medicine was making me feel better. I tried allergy meds, cold meds, knock-you-out sleep/cold meds...nothing worked.

Then I started wondering....

And yes, it happened.

I'm pregnant with #4.








Oh, and April Fools.

Well, It Was Chinese, But I'm Not Sure It Was Food.

Last night, Spencer, the girls, & I went out to get Spencer's mom (Nam) a birthday present and grab some dinner.

None of this had been planned ahead of time, mainly because that's the way we roll. It was also about 6:45 when we left the house, because I was "detained" at the local salon having my toes beautified. While Spencer wasn't exactly thrilled that my pedicure experience took as long as it did, I'm pretty sure I heard a collective "Amen" from every woman who is reading this blog post. Because, as I've recently learned, a girl's gotta have cute feet even if it pushes dinner back by a few minutes. Or 2 hours in our case.

Both of us were pretty much craving Chinese food, but since we would rather poke needles in our eyes than sit through the Friday night line at PF Changs with 3 hungry, cranky kids and without reservations, we opted to drive around and find a lesser known Chinese establishment.

We found it.

Our 1st clue that dinner was to be...um...questionable was the fact that we quadrupled the number of people in the restaurant just by walking in the door. And for all you peeps who aren't from Birmingham, eating out on Friday/Saturday nights requires skill, plan ahead reservations, waiting an hour in line, and the patience of Job. So you can imagine our surprise (and at this point, pure delight) that we walked straight in and sat down.

I'm pretty sure the word SCORE! was uttered once or eleven times. They sat us directly next to the only other people in the entire place, which was a lady and another lady that I'm pretty sure used to be a dude.

So our darling waitress took our drink orders, brought our drinks (3 sprites for the girls, Diet Coke for Spencer, and Coke for me, because I think Fountain Diet Coke is gross, thus my willingness to suffer through the calories of real Coke) and then left. Apparently, this was a Chinese buffet. We were supposed to know what to do and just do it.

Now, while we were sitting there waiting on the menus-that-didn't-exist, Mary Emma and Spencer got the most puzzled looks on their faces. We were sitting next to a huge fish tank that resembled the fish tank in Finding Nemo AFTER Nemo bravely climbed into the filter and stopped the flow of water. I felt a strong need to go apologize to the fish that inhabited it. But Spencer and Mary Emma were more puzzled at the 8 pieces of broccoli that were floating in the fish tank than the condition of the water in the fish tank. Broccoli. Yummy.

I sucked it up and headed to the buffet anyway. The only thing that Mary Emma wanted was Egg Drop soup, filled with about 3000 of those crunchy noodles, but I made her get some Sweet-n-Sour chicken minus the Sweet-n-Sour sauce (aka, chicken nuggets) to go along with her soup. I fixed myself a plate of various Chinese dishes, mostly chicken, but I also decided to BRANCH OUT and get some Mongolian Beef. I was also fixing Tait's plate. I gave her some chicken nuggets & french fries, and then attempted to give her some white rice. (Please don't lecture me on the lack of nutrition of her dinner, I was totally working with what I had.) The rice was one huge, hard as a brick, lump. So Tait got chicken nuggets and french fries. Spencer now headed to the buffet to fix his and Camille's plate. He also came back with various types of food on his plate, and had chicken nuggets, french fries, and Honey Chicken for her. Her Asian palate is so much more advanced than Tait's.

Spencer and I both concluded that all of the buffet food was leftover from lunch, a mere 8 hours earlier, and was a little, um, overcooked by now. But we remained strong.

While we were eating, a few more people dwindled in and helped themselves to the buffet. We were most amused by the dude who walked up to the buffet, grabbed a plate, stuck an eggroll in his mouth, and proceeded to walk around the buffet fixing his plate while the eggroll stuck out of his mouth like a ginormous cigar. That guy had skillz. I ate a little of my dinner, but decided to call it a night when my Mongolian Beef tasted like fish. Mary Emma really wanted a Chinese Donut, but we told her she had to eat all of her chicken before she could have one. She responded with, "But Mommy, it's chewy." So we promptly sent her to the buffet to get a Chinese donut, without having to finish her chicken. I'm pretty sure they disguised a hockey puck with some batter and sugar, though, because the poor kid COULD NOT BITE THROUGH IT.

Oh, and while we were at the buffet, we noticed that part of it had sushi. Raw fish that was sitting under heat lamps. We both decided to pass on that one. But I was curious, because I hadn't seen a sushi bar. I found it on the way out. Instead of being full of properly refrigerated fish, it was full of boxes of cups, straws, to-go boxes, and fortune cookies. Wonder where they made the sushi?

So, if you live in Birmingham or are just passing through, I can definitely recommend some fantastic Chinese restaurants.

This one, however, isn't one of them.

Grab The Button - Let Others Take The Challenge!

First, I totally created a button.

I KNOW.

I'm so impressed with myself that I might go buy myself a present.

Now, grab the code to the right and put the button on your blog. Let's keep up the challenge! Imagine what this world will be like if more people do something nice for others and give HIM the credit, rather than taking the credit themselves.

Awesome to think about, huh?

It's A Challenge. Are You Willing To Accept?

I went to Beth Moore's Living Proof Live in Nashville this past weekend (don't worry, blog post about that coming soon - you know how it is when you come back from a conference like that...it takes a couple of days to process it all so that you can write about it in complete, coherent sentences....). The conference was actually for Ministers' Wives, which I am not.

Let me explain.

My dad is a pastor, therefore making my mom a minister's wife. I told my dad about this conference back in December, so he bought my mom 2 tickets to it for Christmas. He wanted her to go, and he wanted me to go with her.

Twist my arm.

Anyway, I was actually feeling a little (A LOT) guilty about going, since I'm not a minister's wife, but told myself that either I would go and participate and have a whole new respect for what a minister's wife goes through (I'm pretty plugged in to that subject already, being a PK), or I would go and participate and God would use Beth to bring a fresh Word to me. A Word that would be relevant and challenging and life changing - even though I'm not a Minister's Wife.

Wanna know something? Both happened.

Y'all, it was good. GOOD. But more on the details of it later.

Beth camped out in Galatians for the weekend. She gave 6 examples of how it can be AGGRAVATING to be a Minister's Wife, and how they should have an ALTERNATIVE to combat the aggravation. One example that resonated particularly with me came from Galatians 5:15.

"If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other."

This doesn't JUST apply to Ministers' Wives. It applies to WOMEN as a whole. We want others to recognize us for our intellect and character, not for our possessions and looks, but are the first people to chew someone up over their possessions and looks. How hypocritical are we? We claim to be above the superficial. We talk the good talk. But I guarantee that as quickly as we can say to someone's face that intellect and character are important, we can also go behind their back and criticize their hair and clothing. We are our own worst enemies. And when we bite and bite and bite at each other, soon we will destroy each other.

It has to stop.

So here's your challenge. And it has a little twist in it to help keep the credit belonging to HIM.

Every day this week, you are to go out of your way and do something nice for someone else. It could be as simple as holding a door open or walking someone's grocery cart to the cart corral. It could be as elaborate as putting some cash in an envelope for someone who is particularly financially strapped or sending your pastor and his wife a gift card to a restaurant that would be normally out of their price range.. After you do the nice thing, come back here and let us know what it was.

Here's the twist. You can't tell anyone about it verbally. Not a SOUL. The comments about the good deed must be posted as anonymous. This will keep us from getting the credit. It's not about us. It's about Him. It's about doing what He has commanded us to do and love our neighbors. Posting an anonymous comment will also give someone a good idea about what they can do. Go ahead and copy something that someone else has done.

Feel free to link back to this post on your blog. Let's see how many people we can get to participate in this. Can you imagine the blessings that will come from this?

Now go and let's see what you can do in His name.

Seriously?

I took this picture at an Exxon gas station in Athens, AL yesterday.



The most shocking part to me is that they spelled "receipt" correctly, but not "available."

And is it wrong that as SOON as I saw the sign, I quickly grabbed my camera and thought, "I have GOT to blog about this!"?

All for you, bloggy peeps. I'm here to serve.

Confession Time.

I have a love/hate relationship with my feet.

The "love" part is that they look like my dad's feet and I adore my dad.

The "hate" part is that they look like my dad's feet. Man feet on a girl = not cute.

I don't like to draw attention to my feet. I never EVER polish my toenails. I hate HATE someone touching my feet. I have never gotten a pedicure (much to the astonishment of ...um... every girl I know). My toenails are teeny and don't grow and look ridiculous with polish on them.

Fussing over my feet is just something I wasn't created to do. But it is sad to be a girl in the south and not be able to wear cute YellowBox flip flops proudly.

And I have been sad.

Until last week.

And I can't even believe I'm blogging about this for all humanity to see.

Mary, you will be proud of me.

Here goes.

I got acrylic nails put on my toes and then had a full out pedicure. Yes, it can be done.

Y'all.

I have pretty feet for the first time in my whole entire life! My toenails are pretty and shapely (weird to call toenails shapely?) and painted RED (I haven't had painted toenails for my entire adult life) and look pretty in flip flops! I find myself bumping into things when I walk around because I am looking down to marvel at the prettiness of my feet!

I can't even get believe it.

Now my feet don't look so much like my dad's, but I'll take pretty feet over man feet any day of the week.

Last Saturday was my first "wear flip flops out of the house for people to see" experience when I went to my daughter's softball game. The weather was warm, the sun was shining, and I got a LOVELY flip flop tan.

But I don't even care.

Because I have cute girl feet.