Open Season

It appears that it is open season at my house... by that I mean that everyone appears to have become adept at taking aim at, throwing things at and hitting everyone else.  "To what end?"  you may ask, well, as far as I can tell, it is all designed to provoke an outraged reaction from the closest parent, which, by the way dear readers, is ALWAYS me!  (oops did I just shout that? I am obviously demonstrating why I am the target of this war of attrition!)

The problem is that it has become self perpetuating, they yell/ hit/ throw stuff and I, in return, display all the properties of a rocket preparing to enter outer space, while they look a little stunned / dissolve into tears  and then, I feel guilty and indulge them with yet more TV time or a cookie or a cup of tea... which then begins the cycle of violence all over again, because for whatever reason, they are totally unsatisfied with their unrighteous gains so on and so on!  

I just had a revelation!! They are congenitally incapable of coexisting genially while there is a mother in the room.. but, for the most part, they are fine when I am elsewhere!  Thats it!  I am off to the Caribbean for a week, Spring break is here, I am sure they will be fine without me... 

For your comments today, I humbly ask for your best parenty advice on keeping the peace between a 3 & 5 year old who could both go 10 rounds with Mike Tyson and come out on top!! Failing that, entertain me with tales of your little dears and their pitched battles!!

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

This week, I absolutely did not wimp out of my life because I was not overwhelmed, not even a little bit, by the mountains of laundry, ironing, dishes and homework.  I did not even contemplate vegging out in front of the TV instead of attacking these things, Not Me!!

Under no circumstances did you not see me at Sprouts with my three year old, where I was categorically not bribing  him into submission with what was obviously not a very sugary treat in the hopes of completing my grocery shopping in peace, no Sir, Not Me!  And what is more, I was not, ever, never ever, that person who, prior to having aforementioned three year old, judged others for bribing their offspring's good behavior and am now therefore not shocked at all at my own inability to survive without a handbag full of lollipops and "treats"!

When number one son, who by the way is five and therefore totally potty trained (in theory), although actually is not, had not one but three accidents; I did not just throw the underwear outside, where they are most certainly not still sitting!  (oh the shame.. :( )

Well that is it for Not Me! Monday  

Tune in next week for more confessions from the dark side of my life!

 

Random Saturday

The Herb Garden.. (see below!)

OK.

So, I realise that I have been unaccountably absent this week, and therefore have decided to start a little thing I am going to call Random Saturday... innovative imaginative title, you say!  Well, you know, that is just the way it is, try to keep up!!  (self-deprecating  humour, very Brit, not very easy to convey in txt!)

Here we go, here is a totally Random sampling of my week, taken from the perspective of second-cup-of-coffee-while-the-kids-fight/play-in-the-background....

* I planted a herb garden this week, I love it, I have raised the parsley and basil from seed and am unaccountably proud that they have survived my kitchen for long enough to make it outside.. it is worthwhile noting that while planning and planting the herb garden my house went uncleaned and laundry went undone to the point that no-one in my house has clean underwear or trousers, and we are about to run out of towels.... but at least my herb garden is weeded, seeded and fed!!

* I have noticed that my children instantly attach immense value to anything the other is currently touching... note I said "touching" not playing with / adoring / using...  it is like they have some kind of ownership serum emitting from their sticky little hands that instantly challenges the other to draw blood  / inflict concussion / throw a spectacular screaming fit in order to obtain said ultimately desirable object.   Examples of such objects over the last week:  one playmobil sword, a large stick (of the "fell off the tree in the back yard variety"), empty toilet rolls, a five gallon bucket (it was orange and as far as I can tell the fact that it was orange and not white like the other seven in the garage was the cause of world war XXVI  for the week!!) etc etc.

* I am in desperate need of a reliable, responsible, reasonably inexpensive babysitter!  When hubby got home from our meeting last Saturday (I was, as you may recall getting ready for the Blogger Dinner at the Grand Lux), he encountered the almost apocalyptic destruction of our, up to that point, relatively clean home.  The sitter du jour had allowed my 3 and 5 year old to run wild ( insert gasps of horror here ); there was popcorn all over the floor; every item from the playroom had migrated downstairs was artfully strewn across the house and garden as if to give the impression that a horde of Vandals had just passed through; the boys had been allowed to eat anything they could get their hands on (which, by the way, is everything in my larder as they have decided that the shelves are as good as a ladder - so now there is nowhere to hide the chocolate :( ); the kitchen looked as though someone had allowed a kindergarden class to make spaghetti sauce without supervision...  And we were only gone for five hours!!  

* I have an extraordinary ability to ignore that beep that the microwave makes to say "I am done cooking, now would you PLEASE get this cup of coffee / rice / potato / soup out of me!!"... in fact, this week I ignored that beep for five whole hours until a friend came over and immediately identified the source of the noise and in an incredulous tone of voice asked me why the microwave was pretending to have cooked rice that was a) cold and b) very possibly beginning to attempt escape under its own power!  I really must pay more attention!

***WARNING!! ***

****Serious one coming up***

* I am in desperate need of food for my soul.  I know this is not funny / amusing etc but it is still part of my week. You see, that was probably the hardest part about this week, the dryness, the lethargy (some days even apathy) that I have been struggling with.  I need real revelation of the person of Christ in my life daily, and when I don't have it I am lost, anchor-less, adrift in the storm that is my life.  My friends try to  help and offer life-rafts of various varieties, but the only person who can truly rescue me is Jesus.  The truth is that He is trying to bring me to a place where He is the source of my contentment, not our income, not my children, not my home, but Him, in all those things, despite all those things.  Then why is it so hard?  Why can I not trust Him to provide for us?  Honestly, that is the root of much of my struggle right now... financial instability is THE challenge to my contentment in Christ, and the root of that is the battle for control of my life - He should be on the throne, He should be the one I look to in all things while I fight against the do-it-yourself, make-it-on-my-own, entrepreneurial culture of my world and my heart.  So, in dependence I ask Him for help, and will not pretend that "more study / prayer / reading / discipline" will make the difference, but hope in His tender mercy and infinite Grace to rescue me from myself.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit, I hope your week was fun and fulfilling and even a bit challenging... because, like the trainers at the gym are always saying, if it isn't hard it isn't changing anything.  Hard is fulfilling - that is what hubby always says.

:)

Ally

What a Riot!!

OK, so my weekend was a study in contrasts!

It all started when, on Friday night at an Open meeting for our MonaVie business, I saw an old colleague and friend from back in Florida, the reconnects continued all day Saturday with one leader after another getting distracted while they were speaking because there were these faces that they recognized but couldn't place... due to the whole relocation thing. 

The catching up with old friends was encouraging for a number of reasons, most of which are along the lines of, "If they can do it, and they are normal, workaday peeps, then so can we!". But then around five, as we prepared to go our separate ways, with promises of "We'll call / email / keep in touch!", I started to get nervous.  Not, you see, on account of these old, rekindled friendships, but more because in a couple of hours, I was going to meet a whole crowd of new people, most of whom I had never met, or for the most part even heard of.... 

So, confession time... I am VERY VERY new at this whole blogging thing, I don't know what a Mr Linky is, I have no idea how to edit HTML, I am absolutely lost when it comes to monetizing and buttons and pages and archives.. I don't even have enough posts to have an archive!!   And I, this unaccomplished newbie was going to the DFW Blogger Dinner, with 29 strangers, a few of whom I have loved from a blogging distance but mostly unknown and therefore potential axe murderers / strangers / aliens!!  

I am thrilled to report that they were all, without exception, really fun, witty, almost totally normal (in that awesome totally screwed up on the inside way that bloggers are!) and absolutely hilarious!  I admit to being lost when conversations turned to the more technical side of blogging, and Mary Ann ( of The Stiletto Mom), I am really looking forward to our chat this week, although I won't be a bit surprised if you are at a loss as to what to do with such a one as I!!  Dorsey, Natalie, Christina, Lisa, and Texan Mama, you were all absolutely brilliant dinner companions, I have rarely had so much fun at a dinner table, and almost never find people who talk as much as me!!  

I can't wait for the next one, and shall henceforth have to severely limit my blog reading / computer time lest my life be solely lived vicariously through all your wit and wisdom and stick figures (Holly!). 

I am honored to count some of you as friends already and look forward to adding to that list daily!  

Thank you for making my weekend!

Ally :)

Neither Strange nor Alien!!

Go figure!

My new neighbor, the friendship initiated by my mother, is neither strange nor alien, in fact, to date she appears to be normal! 

So normal, in fact, that she allows me into her house when it is covered in laundry, dishes, and discarded attempts at homework!  I think I may be in love!!

Is it just me?  I mean that? Am I the only one (well, apart from R) who believes that if you are really going to be my friend that it is normal for you to have to pick your way through towers of lego, mountains of laundry, and the half completed rocket project sitting on the counter to have a cup of tea and a chit chat?  Until last week, I thought that all suburban American homes had an automatic locking mechanism.. when they were messy or dirty or just normally untidy (to my mind - a home!) the door didn't open, except perhaps to allow the hostess to poke her head out and say that they really were on their way out, or in the middle of homework, or ... !

I  have decided to begin establishing "pop in" rights with friends... where we are both welcome to pop in whenever, where we won't be worried about the outward state of our homes because good friends could not possibly be worries about such things and where we won't be remotely offended if the other is genuinely on their way out, or in the middle of homework etc...

So, come on over, it is always chaos here but you are most welcome to add to it!

:)

Neighbors, friends and other strangers

Why does it take someone coming to stay from out of the country to connect us with our neighbors?

You see, in my neighborhood there exists a kind of Berlin Wall-esque divide at the end of my street, somehow, although I see these people daily, see them playing basketball, hauling out their rubbish bins, waiting at the bus stop for their kids, I don't cross the street to meet them.  Why?  I mean, it is not as though suddenly, along the mid-line of SB Street a new language has evolved!  I am pretty sure they are all still American, speak English or Spanish or even both, send their kids to school etc etc... although to be truthful, I have only met one of "them"... the rest could be absolutely bonkers!!

Anyway.. so my mum is here for ten days.. all the way from bonny  Scotland.. and when she decides to brave the wilds of our elementary school cafeteria at 10:30 for "lunch" with my Kindergardener (don't even get me started on 10:30 lunch - that is a whole other rant for a whole other day!), she not only meets people, she meets my neighbor; the neighbor I have been considering stalking to find out if she, in fact, doesn't speak English or Spanish or even both, doesn't somehow have horns or is in some other fundamental way, not "one of us"...  In fact, this neighbor has become my newest friend and has gone out of her way to welcome a newbie to the 'hood... but why did it take my mum ( did I mention that she doesn't even live here?!!) to connect us?

Meeting new people is one of those things that shouldn't be scary, and usually doesn't scare me at all.. as one of my friends said today, I could talk to a tree and be happy!  But there is something about suburban America which totally wigs me out... it is like some houses and streets have invisible forcefields around them.. a sort of "invisible fence" repelling neighbors, small children, dogs and other "undesirables".  I am blessed to live in a 'burb where this doesn't generally apply and have, as a consequence, made some great friendships with my neighbors... is this normal?  

Am I the only one who longs to be able to drop in whenever, and have people feel free to just pop over whenever they want and not feel as thought they are intruding, or worse, that my house is too much of a shambles to have guests... let me just say, for the record, that if that were my criteria, no-one would EVER come over... there is always at least one pile of laundry multiplying on the floor or a kitchen that has definitely seen better days having an even worse one!

So, on that note, good night dear friends, and please come over any time, for a cuppa, a coffee or just a good chin wag..... our door is always open (literally, it is broken and doesn't even shut properly!)  

:)

Drought

This past few weeks have been interesting... not so much because of the actual events, but rather because of the revelations of who I am and how I am wired that have emerged.  For example:

I am unable to focus entirely on more than one thing at a time ... I have become an either / or sort of girl, most definitely to the detriment of my walk with the Lord and, some would say, to the detriment of my ability to think and hold a conversation!  

I long for clarity, security and stability and constantly seek them where they cannot be found, much to my dismay and frustration.  I know that I need to find all those things in the arms of my Saviour so why do I look elsewhere?  

For someone who talks as much as I do, blogging is extraordinarily and surprisingly hard... not least because picking which thought to blog about is like picking a flower and finding that once  you get it home and try to draw it, that a) your skill at depiction is definitely lacking; and b) the flower is not quite as fascinating out of it's natural environment.  This leads me to a new idea, perhaps this week, I will try and give you all a little slice of our crazy life, perhaps even a daily slice.  I can't vouch for the quality or content of this little experiment... but here goes!

See you on the other side!