Monthly Archives: November 2007

This week I went to the doctors (not the weight one, the thyroid one) he’s willing to keep me at the higher levels if I promise to report any and all heart flutters and hiccups. None so far. At the “accepted normal” level, I am very much like Dory, the little blue fish from the movie, Nemo. I wander into rooms to get something and promptly forget what I came for, I know what I want to say in my head, but can’t find the words to get it out…..it’s horrible, kind of like being a prisoner in my own head.

I’ve found that if my thyroid is balanced slightly above “normal”, I can think clearly and function in the world of adults again. The doctor I’m seeing has been working through all the levels until we have found where I feel and function the best. It’s been a long process, but through trial and error, we’ve finally found my Normal. Things seem to be much better, as far as, tiredness, aches, mood swings, and forgetfulness. Next week I weigh in.

We did it! We finally called the dish people and canceled our tv programming. We are NOT getting cable, and currently, we don’t even get local programming. Yay! We’ve been increasingly frustrated with the kind of shows that are on lately, then there are the gazillion commercials that interrupt the 15 minutes of educational programming, and add to that, the ever rising price of programming packages. We use our tv mostly for computer (hubby reads the news online with his coffee every morning) and gaming, anyway. Hubby is a techie type, and wasn’t completely on board at first. He waited another month and watched how little we watch tv, what programs were we viewing, and what it was costing us for occasional mindless drivel. For the amount we watch, we could substantially lower our cost by purchasing 1 movie or game per month or subscribing to Netflix.

The man at the dish service number tried to lower our rates, offer us 89 more channels of HD service, and “All at the same price we are paying now!” if we would just continue our service. I held firm……. though, hubby had a few moments of twitching at the thought of passing up 89 channels of HD. (What is up with men and HD!? I still can’t see the difference.) Anyhoo, we will be tv free in a couple weeks and we’ll see how it goes.

Well, it’s official. We’ve pulled our name off the nursery roster and begun to look for a new church. We hesitated to pull out sooner because we didn’t want to stir up hurt feelings and there aren’t any glaring problems with this church. It just isn’t a good fit.

Hubby and I have been feeling this way for a bit, but neither of us thought it was a big deal, at first. Over time, we expected things to change and that we were just “new” and “settling into the southern culture”. (We’ve hosted play dates and dinners, helped with Christmas programs, gone caroling to the shut ins, brought meals to new moms, and reached out to several families to try to plug in, but we just don’t feel like we’re “home”, if that makes any sense.)

We struggle with feelings of guilt. Shouldn’t we always bloom wherever we’re planted? Is there something here that God wants us to be doing? Are we missing something? We’ve prayed about it, but have heard no real answer, only the longing for what we had before. Perhaps we’ve been brought here to be ministered too, by friends we’ve made and people placed in our lives at just the right moment. We’ve been changing…….we’ve also been healing and regrouping here. That has been good.

Still, we miss the close connection that we’ve had at our previous churches, and time and participation doesn’t seem to be a changing factor. God has been working in our lives, but we long for the fellowship of others that are searching like we are. Searching for a closeness with God, a driving force that changes everything in your life. We’ve tasted it once, and now we can’t be content to be complacent……so the search begins, again.

Ever since Hubby’s ER visit, we’ve been getting up each morning to go for a family walk with Daddy. We wake the children early and walk for about 1/2 an hour. The Imp and Sarge don’t seem to mind much because they are morning people. The Gremlin wakes up ornery and proceeds to pester, squabble, and create general chaos until we get back home each day.

Yesterday in school, the Gremlin had to write a poem. (He hates poetry so there was much gnashing of teeth and whining.) Fed up with his complaining, I finally told him that if he hates poetry so much, he should pick something else he hates and channel his angst to make it a really good complaining piece…… but yes, he still had to write it! This was the result:

Morning Walks-by Gremlin
My Father takes us marching,
before the sun gets up.
It’s really much too early,
my brother won’t shut up!

My brother’s always telling dad,
when I fall far behind.
I really don’t like my brother,
he isn’t very kind.

I fall in line with mother,
who yells, “Stop touching me!”
(It’s not so good to mess with her,
before she’s had her tea.)

I really don’t like walking,
my brother is to blame.
I don’t see how it’s good for me
when it leaves me rather lame!

Yep, we’re late again. I think I may have to move our tea day to Monday so that I have lovely pictures to post and can get my act together by Tuesday. Tuesdays are just too busy with P.E. class across town, schooling, and I usually have a “to do list” from Hubby that day too. I digress.

Today we made cowboy cookies for our Young Patriot’s club meeting and read a couple of chapters from Missionary Stories with the Millers. (This is our 3rd time through it, at the children’s request.) Since my time was limited, (I have to make a snack for 50 by Thursday, and another snack or dessert for Friday’s closing ceremony) I also let the children watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and the Voyage of the Mayflower. Milk and cookies were enjoyed by all!

Yes, the Gremlin does wear other shirts when we leave the house. He just happens to like his Bob and Larry shirts a whole bunch lately. We have to enforce the “change your shirt rule” for public outings right now.

Thanks to Lori for inviting us! If you’d like to join Tea Tuesday, visit her at My Little Wonders!

Lately, the Imp has been in meltdown mode. If the boys say ANYTHING to her, she takes offense and bursts into tears or yells at them. When we try to talk to her about it she just says she gets mad. I know she is getting enough sleep and we’ve been watching what she eats, so I think it’s girl hormones. I started watching when it happens the most and it’s usually for about 2-3 days around the same time each month. Hmmm.

This month, she was especially cantankerous, so I finally sat her down to talk. I explained that as she got older, she was going to have more and more hormones going through her body to help her develop into a woman. While that is nifty for physical changes, it plays havoc with a girl’s emotions and feelings. I explained that she needed to learn to identify when her reactions were over the top to things and that part of being a Big Girl is catching our “hormone moments” and not torturing all of the males in our lives with them. We talked about crying over things that normally wouldn’t bother us and identified that as a hormone moment, also getting way too angry over things that really don’t matter in the larger scheme of things. I wasn’t sure if she got it, but she was very pleased to have had another “Big Girl” talk with mommy.

A day later, she came running to me all a-glow. She informed me that she had “captured her hormone” and not screamed at her brother for tickling her. She returned that evening to tell me that she was working on being big and that she had caught several other “sneaky hormones” that had tried to make her cry over silly things. I hugged her and told her how proud I was that she was working on thinking clearly like a big girl. She just beamed. Her outbursts have improved this month and she is very excited to inform me whenever she catches another one. The males in our home shall be forever in my debt! Lol. Here’s to catching hormones!

Imp tearing up the marshmallows

The Imp and I decided to make popcorn balls for our tea party today. We used the Rice Crispy Marshmallow Bar recipe, but substituted popcorn for the cereal. Yum! We are about half way through the 2nd Millie book so we read a few chapters from that. The boys joined us in time to help shape the balls and taste test the recipe. We all agreed that they would be even better and fancier looking with a little caramel and chocolate drizzled on them. (We are supplying the snack for the next Life of Faith meeting, so we are looking for a fancy but easy treat to make.) Thank you to Lori for holding Tea Tuesdays, if you’d like to join with your children, you may sign up here.

Where there is food, there are boys!