A Little Slice of Heaven

Just like everyone else, I look forward to the weekend. I get to stay up late & sleep in - sort of - schlep myself around in my jammies, read & drink coffee, after taking care of the menagerie, of course. Great, right? Or not. This past weekend is a perfect example of a lazy winter weekend gone awry. Hubby was working, so it was just me and the boys, the animals, and the fireplace. Should have been cozy on a cold winter day. Except that it wasn't just cold, it was COLD! Ass-numbing cold, with frozen mix (rain, sleet, snow) - and the dogs think they have to go out every 15 minutes - urgently! Take them out and they wander around, or they harass each other, or bark at squirrels. The diva girls will pee on the floor out of spite, and nobody wants to take the risk and have to clean it up, so you take them out even if you think there can't possibly be anything left in them. Naturally, Toby thinks he has to go out every time the girls go - so he can pee everywhere they've peed, or pooped, or walked. Then there is feeding the fireplace. You can't enjoy a cozy fire without a bit of work. I tried to make efficient use of dog-time by carrying wood up onto the back deck and bringing some inside and putting it in the fireplace. Kill-two-birds, and all that because otherwise there would be no relaxing by the fire at all. As it was, my lazy-time was severely cut into. 

To top everything off, the boys were fighting. All weekend. Over everything - and nothing. As long as they were apart doing their own thing, it wasn't too bad, but as soon as one got bored and wandered into the other's space, the fight was on. Consequently, I spent an inordinate amount of my time breaking up arguments and herding them back into their own areas. Finally I gave them cleaning jobs to do that kept them apart and busy, for the most part. We tried playing Uno, but tempers were on a hair-trigger, and it wasn't working out. When I finally had had enough and flat couldn't stand to be around them any more, I chose to escape; I grabbed my tablet, put my headphones on and watched a mini-marathon of Psych on Netflix. I even flung caution to the winds and ignored the dogs for a couple of hours. It was like a little slice of Heaven for those few hours. And there wasn't even any potty accidents on the floor, confirming my suspicions that they really don't have overactive bladder disorder. It doesn't happen often, but I was super excited about going to work on Monday.

I could be inspiring and say we achieved peace through remembering how much we loved each other and realizing how important family is and how much we mean to each other. I could gloss over the melodrama and hateful words the boys spewed at each other with a tale of forgiveness and deep brotherly affection...but I just don't have the energy required to put that big of spin on things. And really, the truth is, life is messy. My life is messy. Sometimes we have days when there isn't a lot of love being shown. It happens. We get over it and we still love each other, but it's a messy process sometimes. Just because we love Jesus and try our best to follow Him, doesn't mean we are supposed to be perfectly poised and in control of our emotions all the time. I'm a work in progress and so is my family. Christians are placed on teetering pedestals inside fragile glass houses. We are constantly being evaluated for non-Christian-like behavior by non-Christians. We aren't going to be perfect. We are imperfect humans living in an imperfect world full of sin and all that small 3-letter word entails, and we will fall off of that teetering pedestal on occasion. It isn't a matter of if, but when. The difference between some Christians and a true follower is that a true follower will be heartbroken over his failures, repent, and pray for strength in order to do better because for him, it isn't religion. It is a relationship. So, yeah, even though I am a Christian, a follower of Jesus, I fall tragically short of perfection on a fairly regular basis, and sometimes, in spectacular ways. 

This past weekend was not so great, and anger seemed to be the soup du jour. I can't remember who said it, but when we get angry with someone, and we say that person "made me mad", it is a way of transferring the responsibility for our anger on that other person. They didn't make us do anything - we have a choice. We can choose to be angry or we can choose to not be. The one phrase I heard the most was "he's making me mad!"  Evidently we chose poorly.

New Year, New Opportunities

Screenshot from my phone

It is now seven days into the new year and things are starting off with a bang. We immediately got hit with an arctic blast. It's been in the low 30's and upper 20's for days. As I sat at my computer at 2:00 in the afternoon yesterday, the temperature was a balmy 28 degrees. Of course it looked warmer than it was from inside because the sun was out. Right now it is 11 degrees and feels like -8 with the windchill - because the wind has just got to blow. It can't just be cold - it's gotta be cold and windy. Today at this same time, it is forecasted to be 3 degrees with a windchill of -12...Mmmm - Toasty warm!! 

Then, Monday was the first day back to school after the winter break and they let out early because the school district along with a few others across the country, received an emailed threat. Bomb, gunmen, don't know exactly, only that it was intended to threaten the safety of students and staff. According to the FBI, it contained the same language as letters received by schools in other states, but they aren't releasing the exact wording of the email - to hinder copy-cat efforts, I imagine. I thought the school and the law enforcement agencies did a good job of "dismissing" the kids and getting them home without any hysteria or panic. To the kids, it was just an early release day that they weren't ware of - like a bonus, lol. Classes were shortened up and they had to round up bus drivers at the last minute - it was a lot of work and I think everyone did a fantastic job while dealing with the logistics of evacuating all the schools as well as the turmoil of frightened parents. Turns out it was a hoax, of course: some highschooler who got the idea, and the email, from someone he knew online outside of the country. Hmmm...Well, with a new year comes new opportunities - to shine and show the world what you're made of, or to involve yourself in random acts of stupidity and, well, show the world what you're made of....

Yes, so far 2015 is starting off exciting in my little corner of Kansas even though we pretty much ignored the passage into the New Year: Hubby was sleeping because he had to work, the kids were playing games and Skyping with friends, and I was watching movies and reading. Yes, we're an enthusiastic lot, we are! I've been doing a bunch of reading on my Kindle because I did the KindleUnlimited free trial for 30 days, so I'm trying to get the most out of my 30 days. At first I thought it might be a good deal for $9 a month and read anything you want, but there is a catch: Not everything is available for Unlimited. I found a series of books to read but the second book wasn't available, so I had to skip that one. Then I tried some that I had gotten part way through, thinking I could finish them up, but they weren't available either. I did find some others, though, so for me, while the trial period is great, I don't know that it is worth the money. Although, you can quit any time you want without penalties, so it might be beneficial to do it for just a while and then quit, and come back to it again later. I've seen the ads on Facebook about Oyster - they call it "Netflix for books" and I'm now wondering if it has the same kind of limitations. I would bet though that a person could just do the eBook thing through the public library system with similar results, only it's free. It's a thought...

I've got a few things to keep me busy over the next few weeks, other than the reading, as well as throughout the year. I have a couple of design projects, which will add to my professional portfolio, as well as some personal art projects. I also want a new winter scarf, so I need to pick out some suitable yarn - maybe plum or cranberry? Or maybe an ombre effect in blue and teal? I guess I'll know when I see the yarn. Oh yeah - I can crochet. No fancy stitches or anything, but I can - learned how from my step-grandma when I was a kid. Of course I didn't call her step-grandma, or even grandma. We all called her by her name, Alice, just as we called my dad's dad by his name, Clarence. He wasn't much of a father to my dad and he lived up in Yakima, Washington and we didn't see them much, so the grandkids were not encouraged to call him anything else. But oddly enough, my grandmother (dad's mom) didn't like the term grandma, so she also got called by her first name, Georgie - actually Georgia, but she preferred Georgie. Anyway, I thought about learning to knit, but it seems complicated - knit one, pearl two and all that. 

If I don't come up with any more scholarships and can't continue on for my Bachelor's in the near future, then I want to take piano lessons. One of the pianists at church teaches, and his prices are reasonable. He also said that I won't have to do any recitals, which was the big kicker for me when I was a kid. I was definitely interested and seemed to have an affinity for it, but the whole recital thing was a deal breaker. I know - I'm weird. The funny thing is, I don't really care :p

Hubby and I also talked about maybe taking a road trip on the bike this spring. When we got the new bike, Harley Davidson sent us an atlas with all kinds of routes to different places complete with recommendations for places to eat and sleep. It sounds like fun, but I think I would want to get a bluetooth headset before we go so that we can talk easier. We also need to plan a family trip. The problem of taking anything longer than a day trip is Toby, our German Shepherd. Toby has never actually hurt anyone, but we really don't want to test the waters, either. He's affectionate and goofy and loves his family - other people not so much. He takes his job of protecting his family seriously, and other people take him seriously. Who wouldn't? He's huge, scary and he sounds like a bear when he growls.

I leave you with a shot out my backdoor yesterday morning of a gorgeous winter sunrise.

Winter sunrise out my backdoor- no filter!!