Sticky Start to the Day
While checking my blogs just now, and eating my morning peanut butter toast, I had a little mishap. I dropped my toast, and watched it flip around and around as if in slow motion, until it gracefully landed butter side down on my toes. While I hate to waste that precious peanut butter, you will probably be happy to hear that I refrained from licking my buttered toes.
Female Fantasies
This one is for the ladies… (HT Mark)
Burdens
How many of you have been admonished at the beginning of a worship service to set aside your worldly concerns and focus on the worship of God (or some close variant)? I’d like to propose that although there may be some truth to such an admonition, there is also a very real danger that may cause us to turn our hearts from God.
Yesterday, right before worship, I got a bit of bad news and felt like I wanted to vomit as we were driving to church. And it made me realize that to set aside such a concern (or, more realistically, to pretend to set it aside) as I entered worship would actually be contrary to faith. There is no godliness in refusing to rely on God, and it is not faith to hide the concerns of your heart from God. Randomly open your Bible somewhere within the book of Psalms, close your eyes, and point, and you’ll have a proof-text for what I’m claiming.
Instead of setting aside our “worldly concerns”, I would suggest what matters is what we do with them. Do we continue to think we can solve our problems on our own, focusing on lifting ourselves up out of our problems while in the worship of God? Or do we come to worship offering God not only our songs, our tithes, but also our problems, our fears, our vanities? Faith gives God everything, not just the stuff we think we’ve prettied up.
Iron Maiden
Last night we had some friends over for dinner and at some point the conversation managed to wind its way around such that my reference to the Battle of Passchendaele made sense. And the question came up as to how I knew about this grim killing field from World War I, and of course the answer was Iron Maiden…
At which point I found myself explaining something that is probably utterly mystifying to anyone who did not grow up listening to heavy metal but is enjoyed greatly by those of us who did: much of Iron Maiden’s repertoire is based on references to literature, history, film, television, and mythology. And it is often done quite respectfully. Even, one might say, tastefully.
To make the point here, I’ll highlight a few of the songs that I’ve enjoyed and then ask my faithful readers who might have listened to a little Maiden growing up to chime in with further references. Of course, that assumes I have any faithful readers left. So here goes.
The Trooper – Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and the Battle of Balaclava (part of the Crimean War)
Where Eagles Dare – book and movie of the same name
Flight of Icarus – Greek myth
To Tame a Land – “Dune” by Frank Herbert. Here’s a great detail from Wikipedia.
However, when Steve Harris requested permission from the author to name the song “Dune” and to use a spoken quotation as the track’s intro, his request was met with a stern reply from Frank Herbert’s agent: “No. Because Frank Herbert doesn’t like rock bands, particularly heavy rock bands, and especially rock bands like Iron Maiden”. This statement was backed up with a legal threat, and eventually the song was renamed “To Tame a Land” and released in 1983.
Children of the Damned – film of the same name
The Prisoner & Back in the Village (2 songs, 1 topic) – British television show “The Prisoner”
Run to the Hills – Europeans coming to the Americas
Aces High – British RAF versus the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain
Rime of the Ancient Mariner – though 13 minutes in length, it is still an abridged version of the poem
Still waiting for the rebate
I love spending time at Fry’s, but somehow, this doesn’t surprise me.
That’s the WRONG Sink, Baby!!
Tonight after a really delightful evening of supper and visiting with dear friends, we were rushing the children through their bedtime routine, and there was a bit of backlog in the boys’ bathroom. While Nicolas had his turn at the sink, little Josiah hollered and pointed to his toothbrush, impatient to step up on the bathroom stool and brush his teeth (his favorite bedtime task).
Jay, hoping to get Josiah started on the process, handed him his toothbrush with only a little water on it, and Josey contentedly began to brush. Somewhere in the next minute or so both the parents lost track of what was happening in the bathroom. Nicolas, having finished his hand-washing, and tooth-brushing, was now filling his sippy cup with water, and was still (in Josiah’s mind, I guess) hogging the sink. From the baby’s point of view, perhaps he might never get a turn with the sink and faucet if circumstances were left up to the big people.
But I have to hand it to Josiah. Instead of bellowing and throwing a tantrum about the situation (which would be par for the course for our 23 month-old), he decided to figure out an alternative. After all, there is more than source of water in a bathroom…am I right??
And that is how I found him: leaning over the potty, dipping his brush into the nice big pool of water as far as his little chubby arm would allow, vigorously getting a good few brush strokes in, and then enthusiastically shoving that toothbrush back into the nasty, hadn’t been washed in almost two weeks toilet. Ugh.
Please, dear Readers, shudder and gag along with me, if you will!!
Early, Early Fall Break
Most schools don’t give holidays the second week back into fall. And Covenant didn’t intend to either, but power outages at the lower school yesterday and today have resulted in canceled classes for grades E-6. Which has facilitated some opportunities for us moms to help one another out. Yesterday morning I sent three of my four charges to a friend’s while i took Jonathan along to a Moms’ only organizational meeting for the start of Chapel School (Nicolas’ preschool co-op this year). Jonathan sat for ALMOST TWO HOURS on a couch and was an absolute angel while the mommies talked on and on and on. He had Cricket in Times Square to keep him company, as well as his Webkin, “Chow”, but still, it was a feat for my six year-old ball of energy, and I was proud of him for this display of self-control.
On my way home, I grabbed not only my three kids back, but two of my friend’s children, as well as another little girl whose Mommy had to work for part of the day. So I had seven children in my home from lunchtime on. And it was fun, if a little noisy at times!!
We have no huge plans for today, but I’m thinking it will be great to just hang out together. And now, the troops are asking for pancakes, so I must close, and oversee the mixing of ingredients and the splashing of batter. Here’s hoping you and yours have a wonderful day.
By Way of Update
Tonight we have a fully operational plumbing system again. We have had much to be thankful for in the past 24 hours. Some of those things are:
- Abigail….who spent a full hour last night with me dealing with the kitchen full of soiled dishes that could not be washed in the sink or dishwasher. We transported the dirty load in a clean laundry basket back to the master bath where we sanitized the tub, and then filled it with LOTS of soapy water and all the dishes. As I washed dishes in the large tub, Abigail carefully rinsed each piece under the faucet in the sink. We dried each item, and put it all away before bed. Abigail made this job so much more pleasant, and was a patient and diligent worker. As well as excellent company!
- Jay….who this morning treated us to breakfast out at a restaurant – such a rare treat that I cannot recall a time except on long road trips when we have eaten breakfast out as a family. This saved me tons more work. And was lots of fun!
- Drain Doctor…who gave us a sound estimate for the job over the phone, then came out and fixed the source of all the trouble, and spent time on a holiday to do so. They have also done good work for Jay’s folks in the past, so we can recommend them highly.
- A home cooked Meal in a fully functional kitchen…to celebrate the ability to wash dishes again, we made a whole bunch dirty by eating platefuls of brisket, cob corn, watermelon, broccoli slaw, and peach cobbler! Dinner was merry, and everyone helped to clean up afterward. We used nothing short of scandalous amounts of water!!
Here’s hoping all of you have had a peaceful and relaxing Labor Day Holiday.
The Only Thing Worse Than a Sinkful of Dirty Dishes….
…is a sinkful of dirty dishes that YOU CANNOT WASH!!!
Because you have a block somewhere deep down in your sewer line…
That you discovered whilst trying to get a houseful of six ready for church early this morning…
And consequently were freakishly late to worship, but that was ok;
And despite your good-looking, resident handyman heading to the Lowes and picking up a “snake” (after worship of course),
And subsequently wrestling with the beast in the sewer line for a couple hours…
The clog is still there…rendering not only Abigail’s shower and toilet unusable;
But also the Laundry Room sink and of course, clothes washer;
Plus the precious kitchen sink and it’s next-door neighbor, the dishwasher
(Which, despite being thirty-something years old is still a highly valued part of your household. And you miss it. And apologize to it for ever entertaining the idea of thoughtlessly replacing it with one of those modern, pleasingly quiet models, which actually also clean and sanitize dishes much better than it ever will again. But now it cannot even have water run into it to rinse those dirty dishes)
And so your huge pile of food-caked plates, bowls, cups, pans, and utensils is laughing at you,
Which leaves you wondering which of the remaining functioning bathtubs would be most appropriate for cleaning all these mocking dishes.
But, on the bright side, this whole crazy situation is bound to result in a few shed pounds, on account of all the running back and forth from the kitchen to the master bath on the other end of the house, for every time a cucumber needs rinsing, utensil needs washing, or your hands have to be cleaned due to handling raw meat.
Needless to say we will happily pay the $15 additional fee to our plumber tomorrow for coming to visit us on a holiday, because it will hopefully mean we can use all the sinks and large washing appliances in our home again.
And now I have to close this little entry – and go splash around in my soaking tub with the Lemon Fresh Joy.
Happy Labor Day!!