Mistakes

Yesterday, the morning newspaper screamed this headline:
Police Charge Hodge Elementary PTA President With Theft
(You can read the entire article here) 
 
I saw the paper yesterday, and felt my stomach drop. Just reading the headline brought back a flood of memories from a few years back. I didn't really need to read the entire article to know what had happened, but I read it anyway. Then I reached for my phone and made a call.

See, a few years ago, the same thing happened. However, instead of it being Hodge Elementary, it was another school. And instead of it being an unknown face plastered on the TV and news while people raged and criticized and accused, it was one of my closest and dearest friends face in the mugshot.

It was a bad time. My friend was accused of taking a large sum of money from our school's PTA. Evidence was compiled, and people talked. We live in a small town, so any tiny tidbit of info is fodder for gossip. My friend lost her job within the school system, had to move her kids to another school, resigned from our community rec center where she had worked tirelessly for years and endured all of the stares and comments from busybodies. She lost a lot of friends, and her kids did too through no fault of their own. She went to trial, pled guilty, paid all of the money back and was sentenced to probation and community service. She has fulfilled all of her obligations to the community and judicial system.

Since then, she has remarried and her kids have grown up watching their Mom go through all of this and learning that you can hold your head up when you go through bad times. They also learned that people make mistakes and sometimes pay dearly for bad choices.


However, as much as people detest the idea that someone would take money that did not belong to them, especially from children, the question that most people ask is "why?" and then they usually follow it up with "I could never do that!"


Although I can't answer that in whole, and I do believe there is always another solution, I can tell you that sometimes we forget the human aspect of people.


What most people so not know about this situation is that my friend was a single mom of 2 kids with a deadbeat dad. She also took care of her elderly and ill mother.  In her mind, the money she took was only a loan, until she could pay it back. Over time however, the amount continued to grow.


My questions to those who say "I could never do that" are:
What would you do if you had no food for your kids?
What would you do if your kid's shoes had worn holes in the bottom or they had no coats for winter?
What would you do if your Mother needed to go to the doctor and you had no gas money to take her there? 
What if you could not pay your electric bill and it was about to be turned off, when the temperature is  below freezing?
What would you do it you had a flat tire, and the spare was bad too?

Most people would say they would go to a friend or a family member for help. But not everyone has that option. Many times, the family and friends are struggling right along with you, living paycheck to paycheck and robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

So back to yesterday. I shared this story with the people I work with at my daughter's school, as they read the headlines. After a few moments, my closest friend there (no connection to the friend who took the money years ago) looked at me with tears in her eyes and said "Thank you. Thank you for reminding me that we all make mistakes."

Later yesterday afternoon, another person came in, grabbed the newspaper, rolled it up and held it high above her head proudly proclaiming "This person needs to be put under the jail! This is simply  unforgivable!"


I looked over to my coworker, and our eyes met. Although nothing was said, I could hear her voice saying again "Thank you for reminding me that we all make mistakes."


In the first part of this blog I mentioned making a call. I called the friend who endured this drama a few years back. I told her how the newspaper had headlines of a story similar to hers, and that I was thinking of her. I finished our conversation by saying how thankful I was for how far we had come from where we used to be. Her simply reply, "I love you" was all that needed to be said.


As I stated before, I do not advocate theft or breaking the law in anyway. I do however, believe that we are all human and can never conclusively say what we will or will not do in a situation. We all struggle with things and we all make bad choices sometimes. I am just so thankful that when Jesus hung on the cross, He did not look at me and my sin in my life and say:


"This person should be put under the jail! This is simply unforgivable!"

I am so thankful that instead He chose to simply say "I love you".

We're home!

Oh goodness, I am so excited to share with you that last week, on 10-10-10, our church moved into our new facility. It has been a long awaited process, but we are so thrilled to be in our new home!

The building is simply beautiful. The hand painted murals on the walls are fabulous! The youth room is super cool, and the sanctuary is large enough to accommodate us for now, but not for long as we are already welcoming HUGE amounts of visitors and newcomers!

I wanted to share some picture with you from our opening day celebration!
For more info, go to www.iwcishere.com

This is our super cool new sign out front. It is very bright and is attracting a lot of attention!

 Our new Resource Center, which is built to hold 600-700 people in the sanctuary, has a large youth wing, big children's church, a cafe, a Fine Arts department (we have dance teams and a banner team plus an awesome praise team), offices for all the staff, several large classrooms and a beautiful bright and cheery nursery and preschool department with hand painted murals.

 This is the beginning of service, when the banner team performed.

 Here is a view from one side of the church, but it was taken before everyone got there. The place was packed! It was full of guests, visitors, church members, family, and tons and tons of LOVE!

This is our Bishop, Eddie Tomberlin.

Come visit us! You won't find another place like this!

Need a Good Laugh???

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I hate public speaking. Perhaps that is not a strong enough word. I detest public speaking. I abhor it. I shudder at the thought of it. Ok, you get the point.

Imagine the fear running through my veins like ice water downstream when I was asked to make a presentation on Boxtops For Education at our school's PTA meeting tonight. GULP!

I gathered my info, and-being technologically-impaired- with some humbling help of my daughter prepared a Power point presentation, complete with sound! (To be perfectly honest the media clerk and my daughter did most of it. I just giggled at the sound choices and made the really hard decisions like which version of "applause" we should use.)

I drafted friends and school staff members to be at tonight's meeting for moral support. I was so thankful they were there. I waited nervously for my turn to speak. I was about 3/4 of the way down the agenda so I thought I had plenty of time to gather myself and my thoughts until the PTA President decided that we had no old business and the new business had already been discussed so it was my turn!

I stood up. I walked towards the podium, papers clasped firmly in my hand. I held my head up, looking ahead and fighting the nearly debilitating urge to run out of the door and never come back. Things went well......

........until........

I tripped.

Right in front of everyone. I was not looking at the floor, and my feet got caught in the speaker wire running from the laptop to the electrical outlet.

It was not one of my finest moments.

But somehow, by the grace of God, I did not fall flat on my face. I was also thankful that I did not wear the skirt I had considered, for fear of getting the back of the skirt tucked up in my underwear somehow and showing my ample assets to the entire crowd.

Also by the grace of God, I made it to the podium and heard my voice say:

"And that was just my opening act!"

I think it was a successful presentation after that. The audience clapped and laughed at appropriate moments in my little talk, and I had several people tell me I did well. (What else could they say? "Great job, GRACE?????"

Thank you God for keeping us humble, for giving us a sense of humor, and for friends who will tell you that you did a great job while keeping a sincere straight face.

Be Still

A few months ago, my husband and I took our daughter to see The Karate Kid. You know, the new one, with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. We felt that for her to truly appreciate the film, she needed to see the original version, with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita. (My husband also felt that she should endure the two sequels, which I thought was a bit harsh since neither of them was a particularly fantastic piece of cinematic work but I digress.)

Anyway, after nearly rolling on the floor laughing at the placement of the waistband of Daniel San's jeans in the 1984 version (were guy's waists really 6 inches higher then than they are now????) and practically having a nervous breakdown when I told her that Ralph Macchio was the Robert Pattinson of my day, her father deemed her ready to watch the new movie.

Off we went. Tickets and popcorn purchased. Diet Cokes the size of tubas in hand. Enough candy to feed a small country and turn all citizens into diabetics included. Into the theater we went.

Although the plot was fairly good, I just have to say I thought the original was better. (As it seems to be in most cases of remakes) But this post is not a movie review. Aren't you glad?

Partway through the movie, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan's version of Mr. Miyagi) tells Dre (the smaller and dreadlocked version of Daniel) that "being still and doing nothing are two very different things".

WOW!

That has resonated within for months.

Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10)

How often are we still? I think that especially as a woman, I equate sitting still and doing nothing with laziness. I often find myself multi-tasking to the extreme, loosing track of what I am intending to do by doing too many things at once. I do not understand how my husband and daughter can sit and watch TV for hours, while doing nothing. Just sitting. Staring. I simply can't do it. If I watch TV, it is generally something I have DVRed (is that a word?) so that I can fast forward commercials. I am usually also folding laundry, texting, and making lists of what else I need to do at the same time I watch the program. When I cook, I am also cleaning up the kitchen, loading and/or unloading the dishwasher, helping with homework and setting the table in between stirring pots or flipping meat. When I am online, I typically have three tabs open to do several things at once. Paying bills, balancing checkbooks, checking email, reading blogs, and Facebooking can all be done simultaneously at the click of a mouse. If I am on the phone, I am typically sorting papers or folding laundry or bagging up trash to take out at the same time. You get the picture.

So then what happens when it is time to read the Word or pray? It used to be a struggle. I would get so distracted. Prayer seemed a chore, and reading the Word was uninteresting and hard to understand. I could not understand how my women friends could sit and read the Word or pray for long periods of time. And to just sit and listen to God? To be still before Him? Yeah right. An alien concept to me.

So I prayed about it. While driving. With my cell phone in my cup holder in case it rang and my radio turned down and my eyes on the road. I asked God to make His Word alive to me. To show me how to pray with vigor and enthusiasm. To show me how to listen to Him. And He answered........"Be still."

That was it. Real revelation to me. I had to slow down, and realize that the God who made the Universe and saved me from Hell deserved my undivided attention. He is worthy of so much more that just of me stopping every other activity and coming into His presence with a clear and attentive mind. I wish I could tell you that as soon as I made the decision to approach Him like this it was an instant success, but that would be untrue. Although I tried, my mind drifted, I got sleepy or distracted as I read, and I got frustrated. I pressed on. I kept trying. And it got easier.

Now, although I do not do it as often as I would like or as often as I NEED to, I pray and read the Word much more often. I find myself praying outloud as I drive, with the radio off and the cell phone muted. I pray when I shower. I read the Word and Christian books daily. But every day, I make sure that I get still and quiet and I get still before my Father............

...........and I KNOW He is God.

Proud Mama

Have I mentioned lately what a fabulous daughter I have? I mean, seriously, I know ALL moms are proud of their kids but I think I have one incredible daughter!

I mean, just look at her! 

Not only is she beautiful, smart, talented, kind, compassionate, intelligent, concerned about others and our environment, a true believer in Christ and well behaved, (as if that were not enough!) she is quickly becoming a good friend to me.

When Dad is at work, and it is just us girls, we watch movies, talk, and just hang out. We spend a lot of time together. I enjoy that she is old enough now to have adult conversations and she articulates her feelings so well. We can talk about just about anything. I cherish this time, because I know it will go by quickly.

In an age where most kids think their parents are complete idiots and can barely tolerate to be in the same room with their parents, I have an AMAZING daughter who seems to actually enjoy being with me!

I am blessed!

Bloggy Direction

I am in a funk.
I am in a funk with blogging, scrapbooking, and most heartbreaking of all, cooking.

I love to do all these things, but somehow, I just have no motivation to do ANY of them. Is it the back to school thing? Is it the heat? Is it my mounting sleep deficit?

I am trying to rationalize why I do the things that I do. I cook because I love to eat, I love to see my family enjoy a meal together, I love to try new recipes and see how they work out and it is something that comes easy to me. I truly love to cook and bake, and have been doing so since I was about 8 or 10. But in recent days, more often than not, it has been a lot of sandwiches and take out pizza.

I love to scrapbook. I have scrapbooked since my daughter was 2, so over 11 years now all total. I have a room all to myself to work in, and I have tons of happy supplies that need to be used before they dry rot.  I love preserving memories for future generations, and I have boxes of great pictures. I used to walk by the door to my scrapbook room and hear the paper, ribbons, and adhesives call to me....."COME PLAY!!!!!!!!!"......now all I see is my cat sleeping on my desk and the vacuum parked in front of my sewing machine.

And blogging? I used to feel like I could write every day. I used to have something witty and/or funny to say, or something that seemed worthwhile to share quite often. Now? I just feel like blogging is another thing on my to-do list.

So what about you? Do you blog? Sew? Scrapbook? Work out? Knit? What is your passion? Why do you do the things that you do, and what KEEPS you doing them?

It's Almost Time....

...for school. My daughter starts eighth grade at a new school next week. Due to district rezoning, she will not attend her old middle school. It has been an adjustment for her, but I am happy to day that we learned tonight at open house that she will be in homeroom and all core classes with her two best friends. Talk about happy!

First semester she will take:
9th grade math
math application
physical science
Georgia history
9th grade language arts/reading
9th grade Spanish
band/guitar

She is excited and so are we! I hope that 8th grade is the best year ever!

Abba Father

Every week my pastor sends out an email with something that he feels led to share with us. While each week's thoughts are always very good, today's words strummed a chord with me.

A portion of Bishop Tomberlin's email reads a as follows:

Isn't it interesting that none of the Old Testament writers referred to God as "Father?"  The Old Testament is where we find "the Law" or many attempts at pleasing God (religion). This means that there was no concept of God as "Father" until Jesus came along and referred to God as "Abba Father."  Jesus came to introduce us to a bigger concept of God as our "divine parent." 

I had never thought about when and where God is referred to by specific names. But I do know that Jesus came to bring us into a loving relationship with our Heavenly Father, and His life on this earth freed us from the law of the Old Testament. What a wonderful revelation that we can approach God as our Father, who loves us so much that He sent His own Son to die for us rather than some far off mysterious entity who is so often portrayed as angry, judgmental and condemning!

Thank you Father, for loving me.

Have you ever............

...........come across a picture that needs no explanation? I did. It is my niece and her husband, at their wedding reception two weeks ago.
I am honored to share it with you:

Road Trip

About ten days ago my husband, daughter and I loaded up the car and headed to Louisiana for my niece's wedding. We left our home at 5:00 AM, and hit the Interstate. After a couple of hours, my husband got drowsy so I took the driver's seat. I drove on up the Interstate, listening to the quiet hum of the tires as we rolled along. Not much traffic. The sun was up, but not shining brightly overhead yet.

I turned off of the Interstate onto a road (one I had not traveled before) on the advice of MapQuest. It was GA Hwy 96 and it promised to take us across the state of Georgia into Columbus before we headed south down through Montgomery and Mobile on Interstates 85 and 65, across I-10 and finally onto I-12 into Louisiana.

My husband and daughter were asleep. I found myself watching as the straight, gray, and incessantly boring interstate road gave way into the lush, green gracefully rolling landscape of green trees and quiet roadside land. Everywhere I looked I saw farms with fields rolling for miles of with the beautiful greenery of peas, beans, squash and tomatoes. I saw fields of towering corn stalks, tasseled at the top and promising a good crop. I saw wide expanses of rolling pastures with goats, cows, and horses munching quietly and peacefully on their breakfasts as we drove swiftly past. We passed peach tree orchards with short stubby trees heavy with fruits, and pecan groves with tall, stately trees stretching high and proud above the ground.

I began praying as I drove. I thanked God for this beauty, and repented for taking so much for granted. I prayed blessings and prosperity for the farmers that have struggled so in the past few years of drought and seemed to be having a bumper crop this year. I prayed for the merchants who had small stores along this route, that they would survive our country's current economic crisis and continue to supply their community with goods and services and that their sales would support their own family. I thanked God for His goodness and the beauty He created, and for allowing me to experience it on my quiet ride.

A little farther along I passed an open area on my right, with large silver electrical lines running alongside the highway. As I drove I saw a thin cloud of fog sweep across the valley under the power lines and it took my breath. Surrounded by all this beauty, I wondered if that thin foggy cloud was in any way similar in appearance to the Spirit of God that walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day in The Garden of Eden. It floated just above the ground, wispy and light, sheer and beautiful in the morning light.

I don't know what Adam and Eve saw and experienced in their time with God, but I am thankful that I had my own time with my Heavenly Father that morning, just cruising along Hwy 96. It was amazing.

A new addiction

I have a confession to make. I am sure this will be earth shattering and somewhat shocking revelation to many readers. I never watched Sex And The City on HBO.

Seriously????? Yup. Even when it was all the rage a few years back, it never appealed to me and we did not have HBO anyway, so I didn't feel like I was missing out

Bring on the hysterectomy. While recovering, I spent a lot of time in excruciating pain and piled up in my bed. When my collection of DVR shows and on demand movies was exhausted, I scrolled through channel after channel begging for something to watch to take my mind off of my painful reality. I stumbled across the Sex and The City movie on HBO, which we got free for a month from our cable provider to suck up for screwing up our service and not fixing it right the first time. I watched it, expecting to be bored witless which combined with Demerol may not have been a hard feat to accomplish.

Guess what? I LOVED IT!!!!! It was not the sex (and believe me there was a lot of it but somehow less than I expected from all the hype)it was the story of the friendship between four women that I loved. They stuck through it all, divorce, wedding disaster, children, and still remained friends. Not just casual friends mind you, but the kind that finish each other's sentences and know each other inside and out yet still love each other.

After the movie, I wondered what I was missing out on. I searched my listings and found that TBS shows a cleaned up version in our area every morning at 1:00 and another episode at 1:30am. I watched an episode. I was hooked.

My DVR now clicks to record SATC every early morning. I watch the shows when Jamie is on the boat. There is still more sex that is probably appropriate and I am not sure that spending the time watching the reruns is exactly beneficial or edifying in ANY way, but I sure love the story of these four women. Now....who wants to go see SATC2 with me in the theater???????????????????

Free Hugs in Sondrio, Italy

My friend Noel posted this link on Facebook this morning and I just love it.

I was sad when I first started watching the video, but as it played on it was so heartwarming to watch people's expressions change. I especially loved that these were real, genuine, open arm hugs, not those halfway stiff armed things some people give that make you feel like they are afraid to touch anyone for fear of contamination or something. These were the REAL THING!



How easy would it be to affect many people with such a simple act? You never know what a person is going through in the depths of their heart. So often people could have their whole day/life/world changed by a simple hug.


Who have YOU hugged today?

Last week of 7th grade

Today starts the last week of Marissa's 7th grade year. She is so ready for summer! I think that after the CRCT, the kids are just done. They are exhausted, frustrated, and as the weather gets hotter they are just ready to be out of school. Unfortunately, our school system has the kids in school until June 11. Thankfully, we do not return in early August as neighboring counties do, we wait until September to return. :)

So today is the last Monday of 7th grade, and also the last Monday that my daughter will attend this school. Due to redistricting she will attend  another school next year, but still in the International Baccalaureate program. She will be closer to home, but she is hesitant to change schools. She is a creature of habit, and very much like her Mama, in that she does not like change of any kind. We like things to be steady, even keeled, and predictable. :) It is also the last Monday that any of the kids at her middle school will actually be in that building for middle school, as it is being converted to a high school this fall. The middle school will move to the elementary school in September. Big changes in our district!

It is just so hard to believe that 7th grade is coming to an end.....seems she just started kindergarten last week!

How Much Time?????

I had a discussion with someone the other day regarding how much time this person spends talking to their spouse. Although the person I was speaking to has the incredible bad luck of being 1,000 miles away from their spouse, I was shocked to find out that they spend up to 8 hours a day on weekends on the phone.

Wow.

I started wondering about this, and tried to figure out how much time I spend talking to my husband on any given day. When he is on the boat for a week, we talk maybe 30 minutes a day, and usually not in one clip. It's spread out over many short conversations, interspersed with text messages. When he is home, we talk more of course, but I can't come up with a time estimate. We spend time together because we love each other and enjoy each other's company, but I never thought about how much we actually engage in conversation. I began to think maybe we were unusual, that we were not talking enough or maybe we were just too familiar with each other and conversation was missing somehow.

I wonder though, if perhaps we are not oddballs by thinking that sometimes words are not necessary. We have a heart and spirit connection, and sometimes we can communicate with a glace or a smile that says more than a novel full of words ever could. Sometimes the silence speaks for itself. When I lay down next to my husband and rest my head on his chest, his heartbeat speaks to me in a language all it's own. It's a private language, shared by just us.

I'm not saying there is a right amount or wrong amount of time a couple should spend in conversation. I think that as relationships grow and change it varies greatly in each season. What works for some may not work for everyone. It just made me think.

So what about you? How much time would you estimate you actually spend talking to your spouse or significant other? What would you say is an average time of chatter for other couples you know?

Once Upon A Time.....

...there was a little blog. And it was a very good, sweet blog indeed. It was patient and kind, never too demanding, and always there when I needed to vent to someone.

And now, the poor thing is pouting.

My poor little blog is so neglected.

In all honesty, it has been a whirlwind of activity these past two weeks. We have had a ton of work to do on some rental property we manage, getting it ready for new renters, and in the evenings? Well, we have had something scheduled EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

Throw in that I am still not 100% after surgery the end of Feb (I know.....it's taking a lot longer than I thought too).

My recipe for my life right now woudl read something like this:
I shall call this recipe : Life in A Blender

In a standard blender combine one hard working man who is gone 6 months of every year, one very sweet  almost 13 year old girl, and one over the hill Mom.
Toss in 3 cats.
Add one truck that needs a transmission job, two rental properties in need of repairs, one school year that is winding down s-l-o-w-l-y, 48,000,000 tons of dirty laundry, band concerts, dance practice, clarinet lessons, youth group, dance performance, Church, Facebook, at least 2 family members in crisis at this point, My mom having heart cath, my cat-nephew spending a week in ICU at his vet (poor baby!), my niece is getting married in Baton Rouge in just a few weeks[insert that aforementioned almost 13 year old is a bridesmaid here], the two hamsters we are rodent-sitting for a week, and a yard that needs mowing almost every other day due to the deluge of rain we are getting.

Blend on high speed constantly for two weeks or longer, until Mom is a train wreck.

Serve half baked, just like the Mom.

Have a good week! Stay Sane! :)

19 Kids and Counting

Do you watch this show on TLC? I started watching the Duggar family way back when it was 14 Kids and Counting. My mom told me about it, and she was fascinated with the fact that the parents had named all the kids with names that start with "J".

I have followed the show off and on since then, and now with their latest addition, a premie baby girl named Josie Brooklyn, they are up to 19 kids. Oldest son Josh is married and has a child of his own. This makes Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar parents of 19 and grandparents of one.

My bff hates this show. She says it is ridiculous for someone to have that many kids. She lists off reasons like so many kids in foster care that they could adopt, so many homeless kids, and the toll it takes on a woman's body to have one child much less 19! I have mixed emotions. Apparently, the family is self supporting, debt free and relies on no government assistance, so I have no issue with that. I also feel that a couple should have the right to decide how many kids they want to have. I like to watch them shop at thrift stores to find great deals, because I like to do that too. I love the way the family works together, and I think the children are simply beautiful!

I do wonder however, if the seriousness of the premature birth of this last child will deter them from having any more children. I wonder if they will continue to have kids that will be younger than their grandchild. I wonder how the kids will feel years from now about growing up on tv. The recent Jon and Kate mess made me wonder how much of a person's life we have a right to see.

My main concern came out of a moment of curiosity. I searched Facebook for "Duggars" in Arkansas, and came across a group called "I Hate The Duggars". Further reading brought up groups called "Sterilize the Duggars and "Anti-Duggars". Now this makes me angry.I feel that the idea of hating the Duggars or demanding sterilazation of the Duggars is uncalled for. People have the freedom to dislike choices that another person makes, but is it fair to HATE people you have never even met just because of the choices they made? That to me is not a far step from racism, which is hating people based on skin color alone, or hating people for choosing an alternative lifestyle or choose an unconventional job.

Our job as Christians is to LOVE one another. John 13:34-35 tells us that we are to love each other as God loves us. We may not like the choices others make, we may not even like the things other people do, but we have no right to HATE anyone. Sometimes it is difficult to understand why people do the thing they do, but we cannot hate anther person. It is the same with us and God. We are human, with free will and a mind to make our own choices. However, because of our inherent sin nature, we make choices and mistakes that grieve the heart of our God. What if God had hatred for us when we make mistakes? Lucky for us, He is always loving and always has a plan for us. He loves us so much that He sent His own son to die for us so that we can have eternal life through Him. (John 3:16, Romans 5:8)

I guess the best way to summarize what I think is by quoting the saying "Hate the sin, love the sinner". You may not agree with the Duggars or Jon and Kate or with me, but I hope that you do not harbor hate against anyone. It makes for a lonely and bitter life!

My prayer for the Duggars is that they are seeking the plan God has for them, and that baby Josie and all of the kids remain healthy, happy and well adjusted. Is it God's plan for me to have 19 kids????  Nope. But is it for me to judge the Duggars for having 19 kids? Not at all. And to be frank, it isn't anyone else's either.

A New Friend =)

The coolest thing about blogging and Facebook is friendship. I have reconnected with many people from my school years and early childhood, old church friends, past military families that we served with, family friends that I had lost touch with, and along the way I have met many new friends!

One of the blogs I follow is called Hippy Chick. I am not sure exactly how I found this blog, I think it may have been through "Savannah Scrapbooking" or "Want What You Have" but I am not sure.
I was immediately drawn to this blog because it is quirky, funny, warm, witty, creative, and always has something new. It is the blog I wish I had because it is updated frequently and makes me smile.

Over the past few months I learned that the blog author lives about 45 minutes from me. Imagine that! About a bazillion bloggers out there and I find one practically in my own backyard! We emailed a few times, and talked to getting together face to face, but it didn't happen.

Until Saturday. :D

My husband and I ended up in Angela's town, and I facebook messaged her. We texted just about all afternoon, and ended up meeting for dinner. Her daughter is so adorable! Unfortunately, her hubby was worn out from work and couldn't join us, but that is what next time is for!

She commented on her blog that it was like we had known each other forever, and I felt the same way. It was super cool and I can't wait to see her again!

Here is to the start of a beautiful friendship, in real life, not just online :)

Another Point of View

Remember a few months ago when I posted about the issues my daughter was having with being bullied at school? Well, tonight's youth group message really hit home with my daughter and she told me she wanted to blog about it. 


She has her own blog, and she will post this story there tomorrow, but I invited her to be my guest blogger tonight. Here is her story. Please comment and let her know what you think!

Tonight, our youth pastor was talking about friends. True friends, cocky friends, temperamental friends, etc., etc., etc. It made me think of the first half of the school year. Most of my class was kids whose parents could no longer afford private school or kids who went to the elementary school next door. Well, I was one of few kids from Pooler.

Everything was fine for a while. Breaking the ice, making friends, learning about people, and the like. I met a girl, lets call her Pop A, she was from Pennsylvania, and so I understood the left out thing. We became good friends. I hurt my knee, and they wouldn’t let me go to school because of the medicine I was taking. So, I come back to school, I think Wednesday, she wouldn’t talk to me. She wouldn’t look at me, talk to me, or even acknowledge me. Before I go on, let’s define friend. According to dictionary.com, friend, noun, means a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. Ok, moving on.

So, I text her and we had a nice chat. Sorta how it went:
Me- Hey, what’s up?
Pop A- Nm. U?
Me- Same.
Pop A- Cool.

This is where things fell apart.
Me- Why won't u talk to me?
Pop A- Because
Me- Seriously, why.
Pop A- Well…
Me- What?
Pop A- I’m cool and you’re not.
Me- Oh

I went crying to my mom. She told to say something like, “Well, I guess we’re not friends anymore. But, I want you to know I care about you.” So I do that and she said ok. It ended up that we’re not friends, we’re classmates now.

After that, things started happening. Some examples:
-Pop B&C sitting in front of me, look towards me, whisper, and laugh
-Pop D (I only heard a snippet of this one) whispering with some others and I hear her say “like those” pointing at my shoes and laughing.
-Pop E (I had a Hannah Montana lanyard, “kids” shows are put down extremely) Hannah Montana? Laughs and gossips with others.
-All pops- our lunch table was divided. Pretty much into these groups:
*Boys (except for 3 pop boys)
* Pops
* Me and my two best friends.
-So, once my friends and I wanted to see why they were all laughing, and joking and just being happy. So we sat with them. Everyone became silent, ate, a few whispers, and just looked at us. We got the message and never sat there again.

Things like this kept happening. I cried every afternoon. I begged my mom not to make me go to school. My mom finally talked to teachers, counselors, vice principals, everyone.
We had a meeting. It was a Wednesday or Thursday, and I was called in. I could only recall two events before I broke down. They decided to move me. I expected the next day or Monday to be moved. No, they moved me in this period.

In my new homeroom, I walked in and everyone thought I was replacing a girl everyone liked. Well, that was solved. Then 3 boys thought my name was Deborah. Deborah? My name starts with an M!

Ever since then, I’ve had few problems.

A Must Read!

I have several blogs that I follow. Two of my favorites are Jamie's blog at www.savannahscrapbooking.typepad.com, and Heather's blog  at
http://blog.wantingwhatyouhave.com


Heather's blog is mostly about how to be content with your life by living simply, with detailed hilarious accounts of her daily life.

Jamie's blog is a laugh a minute, quirky and endlessly entertaining ramble of all things in her wonderful life in Dhu Land. (I secretly wanna be her when I grow up)

Last night I flipped over to Heather's blog and was shocked and sickened by what I saw. She reported that by following stat counter (www.statcounter.com), she learned that some sick, perverted, twisted person had found her blog in a Google search by searching "little kids naked".

She wrote a very real and honest account of how this made her feel and the methods she used to report this scum sucking pervert to the proper authorities. I quickly jumped onto stat counter and set up an account for myself.

I urge you to look into it for yourself, especially if you post pictures of your children on a blog or other public forum. It is a scary, ugly world we live in sometimes and we MUST protect our kids. Sadly, technology is so far ahead of legal measures that it is up to US to do what we can to stand between our family and some low life jerk who wants to get his thrill by looking at our kids in bathing suits or precious newborns in a bathtub. Makes me want to barf.

Schwan's House Party

Check this out!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I cannot tell you all how excited I am about this! My box of goodies came yesterday, full of great coupons and recipe cards and insulated lunch bags for each guest. If you would be interested in attending my Schwan's House party and sampling great Schwan's products for FREE, just leave a comment and I will get you all the details!