Thursday

A collection of thoughts on this cool, overcast, and humid Thursday morning...

I just went out to the kitchen and discovered that while I was reading the comment on my last blog (thanks, Joy - love the "spider slayers" expression! I miss mine!) Sam helped himself to the Keebler Rainbow Chips Deluxe cookies. Specifically, he helped himself to the 3 fake m&ms embedded in each one. So now we have a bunch of cookies with the candy parts gnawed off. I should not have left them on the table - I forget how tall Sam is. And I should have known about the candy because he has a big sweet tooth. I have a candy jar in the kitchen that I'm probably going to have put up. Sam keeps going over there, pointing at the jar and saying, "nee, nee!" And then he sweetly signs "please" and I can't resist that, so he gets candy. He also figured out where I stashed the 4th of July parade loot and he's been helping himself to all the dum-dum suckers all week long.

Sam has taken to screeching lately - actually more like screaming. I have been swatting, but my friend Tammy encouraged me to start thumping him by his lip, so I'm giving that a shot today. She's so funny. She wrote to me that they don't let their kids scream unless they "have an arm stuck in the combine." Ha! I don't mind noisy boys and I know they have this biological urge to make noise, and that's fine. But screaming is something different, all together.

This brings me to Tuesday when Ben had his social skills class. What an ordeal! Normally Will is home with David and Sam and I quietly check schoolwork or read a book during the hour that Ben is in class. But Will is gone this week. So I had the youngest two with me out in the lobby area. Sam was a pain and a half. There was the screaming. And then he loves to dart out of the lobby and streak down the hallway. This, of course, would throw David in to a panic, thinking that was the last he'd ever see of his baby brother, even though I assured him that Sam would eventually make his way back to us. So David would take after him, running, which just excited Sam into running even farther. This happened many times, until finally, I just sat myself at one end of the lobby that leads to the hallway so that Sam couldn't make it past me. This brought on more screams. Plus, now I was in the way of employees and other parents who needed to get through. Then, Sam's diaper exploded. He had urine running in rivulets down his legs so I had to quickly get him in a prone position (to which he is extremely resistant, even on a good day), and stripped him down. David was mortified - "Mom, what if someone sees him naked?!" Then, twice Ben comes out of his class groaning to me that his stomach hurt. Of course, at this point I'm ready to say, "That's it" and we would have been out of there. But considering that it's an hour and a half round trip to go to this place, I really like to see him complete the hour. Plus, I suspected that Ben was just anxious to leave because I needed to go to Walmart afterwards and my plan was to go to a Walmart I do not normally go to - something that excites Ben to no end (another post - don't even try to understand that one right now!). Furthermore, Ben's teacher was in a tizzy, "I tried to tell Ben that he should either go to the bathroom or go see the therapist!" She repeated this at least twice. I'm thinking, "Why on earth does he need to talk to a therapist? His stomach hurts - he's not suicidal!" I told her it was fine, reminded her I was his mother, and I could deal with it. I sent him back to class - he was fine. The sad thing is that I have to do this again next Tuesday because Will will still be gone!

I got my van back for good last night - I hope, anyway! We got it repaired from my encounter with the deer on a death mission last month. But it's been so hot and Paul had not gotten the AC coil repaired. So I have been driving our old van, which has a working air conditioner, and really missing my new one! There is just no comparison! He went to work on the AC last Friday and discovered that the radiator was damaged by the deer, something that the repair shop missed. So, we took it back in this week, they fixed it all, installed a new AC coil, charged it up, and we got it last night. I'm happy!

I have been working for the past two days on my upstairs floor. I don't think I have ever painted a floor before - it's work! But I like how it is turning out. Now I need to find the perfect rug...

Paul came home with two corner cabinets yesterday from the Habitat for Humanity resale store. The realtor said we'd have to get the rest of our kitchen cabinets replaced before selling and Paul found these for less than half of what they cost new. They are very similar to the new cabinets we've already put in (we've been replacing all our cabinets slowly, as we could afford it). They're cute. Now we just need to get a row of 3 upper cabinets and we'll be finished in there!

I cannot not blog about Michael Jackson. I really had no intention of mentioning him since this blog is about me and he really had no impact on my life. However...As it says in Matthew 16:26 and again in Mark 8:36, "What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" I think application of that verse can be made to the sad life of Michael Jackson.

I liked his music, what little I knew of it. Even though my parents tried to protect us kids from the world's influences, we knew about moonwalking and Michael's one white glove. He was cool! When I was at UNI in the early nineties I ate lunch every day in the Convo. center. They had a huge, huge tv screen in one part of it and it usually had a soap opera playing on it at that time. But I remember this one day that everyone was sitting around in breathless anticipation because Michael's new video, "Black or White" was supposed to air momentarily. I watched it and I thought it was pretty neat. That man could dance! I have been listening to easy listening stations for decades now and I don't think there has ever been a Michael Jackson song that I disliked.

I don't know that I was necessarily saddened to hear of his death, although, like rest of the world, I was certainly surprised. I even watched some of the news coverage that highlighted his life and music, as well as his many faces, and I found it somewhat interesting. Well, it was interesting the first day. A week and a half of nearly non-stop Michael coverage got to be a little much! I did listen to some of the eulogies Tuesday and that was just it for me. Come on, people! According to the people who spoke at his funeral, Michael Jackson was responsible for the freedom of all black people everywhere and for every good thing that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century! I heard Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson claim that without Michael they "wouldn't have been allowed to have their jerseys in your living room." Huh? Really?

The man was a freak. He was so desperately unhappy that he couldn't even look in the mirror without flinching. What kind of a life is that? He had the opportunity to make money dancing and singing. So what? Did that really enrich mankind? I'm not saying there isn't value in entertainment, but it's very fleeting and very, very shallow. How much better to be remembered for being one who let Christ's light shine through them and blessed people by their Christ-likeness. Or finding a cure for cancer - anything! There isn't a whole lot of value in singing a pretty song or having coordinated dance steps, is there now - really? And as much as it has not been mentioned in the past two weeks, we can't forget that Michael Jackson was accused - twice - of child molestation. I don't know if he was guilty or not. But generally speaking, when accusations are made more than once against someone for the same behavior, there tends to be at least a grain of truth to the matter.

That's my take on it. If the man is in hell, that is truly sad. But I'm not going to mourn him as the greatest man who ever lived, as the media and his friends seem to want to do. It's fleeting, anyway and it's all part of the Cult of Celebrity. We'll see this again the next time a big celebrity meets an untimely end.

And finally...I read something interesting last night that I find myself still thinking about today. It was an article in my Today's Christian Woman magazine. It's a piece written by a wife about the period when her husband lost his job. It caught my interest because in today's uncertain economy, who knows what could happen? Plus, this kind of situation is certainly on my heart right now since my brother was laid off a couple of weeks ago and I'm privy to some of the struggles he and his family are having, as a result. The author, paraphrasing another book, made this comment, "God doesn't care one bit whether we're successful, comfortable, stable, or happy. All the things I thought I was. All the things I clung so tightly to...Why? I'd been asking in frustration. Why us, God? Because God is jealous for our hearts. He doesn't want us to live with the delusion that anything else - jobs, houses, saving - can bring the security that can be found only in Him." Wow! That really hit me. I think of how much time I spend praying about our personal circumstances, usually financial in nature, which has to do with my personal comfort level. And while I believe God enjoys blessing us, this article really brought it out to me that God's ultimate desire, though, is to make me wholly His. How often do I serve Him with a divided heart? Probably most of the time, if I'm honest. I have a hard time even carving out Bible reading and prayer time without having thoughts of my day and situations and this and that crowding in. How often have I had to cut short my prayers because I was needed by someone else? Too many to even remember. While I am spending breath, though, begging God to intervene in my personal life and the lives of those I love, God is saying, "That's fine - I hear you. But I have something better in mind for you. And it's going to hurt you for a little while until the process is complete. I want you, all of you - not just the little bit you're letting me have. I need to consume you and encompass you so that all you need is Me, and Me alone." That's painful to even write because while I want that, my very human self says, "no, no, no!" Refine me without any pain! Let me be comfortable and more holy, at the same time! But I don't think it works that way. It's both enticing and terribly frightening at the same time.

Something to think about in the coming days and weeks as the clouds of economic unstability and moral decay swirl about us...