Oh, what a week... heck, what a couple of days! I'm so lucky to have Joyce to provide the weekly Hodgepodge questions - thank you Joyce, for providing just one thing I don't have to stress over on a weekly basis! Love ya, friend!
Seriously, we need a Hodgepodge Participants Retreat! :-)
On to the week's Hodgepodge!
Since I lived in the south for 10 years (thank you, Air Force!) I do say y'all. People out here in CA look at me kinda funny when I do... but they also do the same whenever I say "sir" or "ma'am" so I guess i can't win!
I used to love going apple picking every fall... until last year's fiasco (go to the random thought... sigh), which I will never ever live down. Now, it's just putting out the pumpkins on the porch, putting away the spring/summer colors in the house and replacing them with maroons and gold colors... things like that.
2. When did you last have a falling out with someone? Has it been resolved?
I had a falling out with a member of our congregation a few months ago. Not fun. But yes, it has been resolved... lets just say God is so, so good. I blogged about it here!
3. A song you love with the word 'fall' in it's title?
Ok, I don't really care for John Mayer - he's kinda a schmuck in real life - but I think his version of the Tom Petty classic "Free Falling" is really well done... Listen, you'll be humming it all day long... great driving music... or walking on the beach music... or sitting in the dentist's office at the end of a long day music...
4. What's something you've recently let 'fall by the wayside?'
My devotional time. My diet. Cleaning out the garage and our closets. The first I definitely need to get in order. The second just takes a little more dedication. The third and fourth, will eventually get done.
5. When did you last attend an event, read a book, watch a movie, try a new recipe, or visit a shop-town-tourist attraction that fell short of your expectations? In what way?
Ok, don't yell at me.
The movie "God's Not Dead"
I KNOW, I KNOW... It is a good movie. It tells the truth. It was released into mainstream media, which is nothing more than a miracle. But after all the hype and people telling us "YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS MOVIE!" we watched it, and I'll admit we were a bit frustrated at the end. In my honest opinion, they tried to tie too many loose ends together and answer big questions with simple answers, and they missed the meat of what real faith means in a day to day life. I don't know... we were all just left thinking "That's it?" at the end...
Sorry to those of you who loved it... it fell short in my opinion.
Oh. My. Lanta. My daughter... my sweet... sweet... sweet... daughter. She is 12. Enough said. And I'm seeing in her the very being I'm sure I was when I was her age... echoes of my own thoughts from that age come from her mouth... and the only thing that keeps me from rolling my eyes back at her is the knowledge that this phase does NOT last forever, it's all a part of adjusting to hormones, and testing the waters. In the meantime, I just need to try and keep her 16-year-old brother from strangling her, and my eyes from suffering permanent muscle strain from rolling in the back of my head as she flounces out of the room with a snarky remark. Sigh.
Yes, today was MUCH better than yesterday! Last night at this time (11:15 pm) I was finally sitting down on the couch and thinking to myself "Seriously? What the heck just happened?" Yeah... one of those nights... wanna hear? ;-)
Yesterday afternoon I left work and drove right to physical therapy. Received a call while I was driving that the cable repairman would be at my house in an hour. Called my eldest son to see if he would be home to let him in. Yes, he would. Went to physical therapy, only to be told by my therapist that I was most likely needing another hip surgery (meaning 2 weeks off work and a year of recovery, needing daily care for a while, while managing 3 kids and a hubby working 2000 miles away - yeah, not good news). Drove home, met the cable guy, got all the kids in the car and drove to a friend's house who had graciously offered to make us dinner.
Wonderful meal - drove home, dropped the kids off at home, and I drove to another friend's house to pick up a carpet cleaner, because my machine had quit the night before as I was shampooing our carpets (leaving shampoo in the carpets, but not extracting it). So I borrowed her cleaner to finish the job. Came home, got the youngest into bed, had the elder Cs help me move the furniture. Went to start the carpet cleaner when I realized it required a special shampoo cartridge, not just the liquid soap I used. No problem, I'll just spray the carpets with the spray carpet cleaner, then use the machine to add hot water and suck the residue up! No problem! So, I start in on the carpets. I finish half of our big area carpet when...
9:30 pm My Middle C comes downstairs and says "Mom, we need to get this looked at" and shows me a gaping hole in her mouth where a filling used to be in one of her molars. Ack! Quick call to the 24-hour phone number for our dentist. No answer. Next best thing, post on Facebook. Get an immediate response to get to CVS and get some Dentafill to temporarily fill the hole. Get in my car, drive to CVS, get the product. Drive home, fill the cavity. 10:00 pm Dentist calls me back - no problem, she's not in pain, bring her in tomorrow. 10:15 pm Another friend calls, husband is a dentist, he Facetimes with us to actually see the hole, says the same thing. Get her back in bed, when Little C calls out to me, he thinks he is going to throw up. 11:00 pm Get him settled down with a cool washcloth in my bed. I come downstairs to discover that in the midst of all this, my Big C has finished cleaning the carpets for me (what a great kid!) I send him to bed, open a bottle of wine, and finally sit down.
Seriously... I wanted to call my hubby, who, bless his heart, is working 2000 miles away for the next year simply to provide for us... but I wanted to say "Tell me the story... tell me what it's like to live in a 700 square foot apartment with no one but yourself to be responsible for... tell me that story!" Although, I say that, and then in the next millisecond say with all honesty that I would miss this chaos SO much, it can't even be put in words. It's chaos, but it's our family... it's real... and it's good. I just wish he were here to help balance out the insanity sometimes! Oy!
So yes, today has been MUCH better. I had an appointment with my orthopedic doctor, and he thinks that while I may need surgery again, he is willing to do another steroid injection to see if that helps. I'm most likely just prolonging the inevitable, but we'll see. At least I'm not looking at it RIGHT NOW. And I took my Middle C to see one dentist, who wants me to pay $300 to repair the filling, so I'm taking her to another dentist (my friend who called last night) for a second opinion. And Little C is feeling much better. Seriously, though... good grief! You can't make this stuff up!
8. Insert your own random thought here.
So yeah, my darling Middle C has been a force to contend with lately. Definitely giving me more trouble as far as her attitude and treatment of me and her brothers is concerned. (And yea, mom, I KNOW I was the same way...sigh...) I know she is missing her daddy too, and, well, she's almost 13 and all hormonal and oy... so when a friend shared this blog with me, I couldn't help but laugh... I know this too shall pass... but in the meantime, it's either laugh or cry, and I'd rather laugh! Enjoy, moms with daughters!
http://www.scarymommy.com/10-things-you-might-not-want-to-know-about-raising-girls/
