My Band-aid Day!

It started with a broken nail as I walked in to Bible study this morning.

Is there anything so aggravating?! It snags on everything, because of course I don't carry emery boards in my purse.

Then at lunch with D and the staff, a plastic fork (heavy duty, no less) snapped in my fingers as I cut through a red onion sliver (!!!) and literally punctured a hole in my finger. D's ad.min. had to run and find a band-aid before I bled all over the food while I phoned my personal injury lawyer.

As we got up to leave the room after lunch, I conscientiously pushed the chair back under the table with one hand while holding a pile of used paper plates in the other, because I am a mom and that is what mom's do. But the chair was on rollers and my thumb nail was pinched in between the table and the arm of the chair right at the cuticle. (I didn't cuss, I promise!)

And somehow in the course of today, I have managed to aquire a large paper cut on my other thumb.

All these things are quite trifling, little injuries in the grand scheme of things. But as any kid can tell you, the little boo-boo's can sometimes hurt worse then the big ones!!

Does anyone feel sorry for me yet?!

For Pete's Sake!!

Pete is our brown and white rat. She (yes, Pete is a female) has the dubious distinction of having the two largest tumors known to rat-kind on her right side.

She used to have a friend in her cage. Guess what her name was? Yep. You got it!! Her name was Repeat. Repeat went to the great Sewer in the Sky several months ago when she escaped her cage by chewing a hole in the wire lid and getting into something mysterious in our basement. That was back when they belonged to D3. Since that time, Pete has been handed down to C. as her new/old pet. (Convenient...right before it dies from acute tumor-itis. D3 is probably just protecting himself from the inevitable sorrow that is coming.)

So now Pete has a new home upstairs across from my bedroom. As I type, Pete has woken up for the night. Rats are so very nocturnal and it is all of 10:27. She is standing on top of her house and she is proceeding to gnaw with extraordinary energy on the packing tape that is covering the old hole that was Repeats escape hatch in the wire lid.

I am debating my choices.

A. Do nothing and risk having a be-tumored rat loose in our house come tomorrow morning.

B. Release Pete to the great outdoors and allow her to scamper (hobble, really, with those horrible tumors) through the wild grass that grows just north of our house.

C. Figure out some way to keep her first and foremost IN the cage as well as quiet for the rest of our night tonight. (The gnawing is wearing on me even as I type this sentence. Maybe "quiet" actually is first and foremost in priority.)

Option A really seems foolish as I think about it. I have no desire to do a search and rescue tomorrow morning for the rat, and she might die somewhere hidden and that would really stink. Literally.

(Oh!! No!! The lid is starting to give way. Ok, it is back on now.)

Option B, while tempting, seems a tad harsh. If the owls didn't get her, my cat would. Hidey-cat would probably not respect the fact that Pete is a fellow pet in the H. household. In fact, she would probably leave her on our front doorstep. OOOOOHHH!!!! And even more importantly, C. would be heartbroken to find her missing. Which is bound to happen soon enough at this rate of gnawing going on, but I would rather not have quite that much to do with it.

(FOR HEAVENS SAKE PETE, QUIT GNAWING!!!!!!!)

Option C...Ok! I think this is it. The cage is going in the utility room immediately as the lid really is starting to give way and I have to find something better then packing tape to secure it.

Now where is the duct tape when I need it?!

Just a little sassy!

Yesterday was a long day at church with a lot of action. Great sermon, awesome worship music, childrens ministry focus, hilarious video during the sermon that everyone wanted to talk about, missions luncheon, a car broken into and credit cards stolen, 911 called for a sick lady... Lots of different things were going on at the tail end of a week with lots of different things going on. It was really a great day for the most part, just long and tiring.

I can get a little "sassy" when I get tired so I usually try to disappear when I feel that sassiness setting in. Kind of like the Hulk ducking into an alley when he transitioned or the Superman in the phone booth thing. I need to be away from other people for my own good as well as theirs. Unfortunately, our church is not furnished with either alleys or phone booths. (Maybe I need to talk to the deacons about that!)

Anyways, I got a little sassy with some sheep. Don't worry, it was pretty tame and I already confessed to D. He just laughed. The first time was in the ladies room where 2 ladies were having a conversation about health food stuff in the stalls when I arrived. I knew who they were but they didn't know I was in there. You know how I am about health food. The temptation was just too much. I joined in the conversation as soon as there was a convenient break in between the benefits of keefer (???!!!) being extolled and the best price on cocunut oil I said, "What are you...a bunch of health nuts?!"

You could have heard the proverbial pin drop.

About half a minute later one of them tentatively started talking again about something else and I decided the time had come to reveal myself. Fortunately, they have a sense of humor. It would have been a shame to have lost their families at church just because I was feeling tired and sassy!!

The second incident I believe I won't share. It would take too long and it would lose something in the telling, I think.

I guess the moral of my little story is: beware when I get a little tired.

Or maybe the moral is: don't talk about health food in public bathrooms.

I am not sure. Either one works for me.

My Little Button Pusher

My 8 year old is mostly out of the age of saying cutesie things that she doesn't really understand. But that doesn't mean that every once in awhile something hilarious doesn't come out of her mouth in a most unexpected moment.

J. is now old enough to know how to push people's "buttons". She dearly loves to do it to her siblings in annoying ways but with her daddy, she mostly just teases. The other day we were watching football to J.'s great disgust as Hannah Montana was available on another channel. Without any drama whatsoever she casually threw out this fact, "Football players wear capri's and tights!"

And my little button pusher is absolutely right!! I personally had never noticed that. (:

Politically Speaking

Politics makes me feel intensely uncomfortable. Whenever I read a political article or watch the news lately, it is like I am the unwilling bystander overhearing the heated argument going on between a couple who knows each other very well and know just how to push each others buttons and is intent on winning regardless of what it costs.

And it doesn't matter whether the slant of the media coverage is conservative or liberal, the anxiety remains.

And it doesn't matter that I know that regardless of what happens in politics, God is still my loving and faithful God.

So my question is, how do I remain in touch with what is going on in the world around me when I feel the need to run for the hills and a good strong Dr. Pepper as soon as things start to get interesting?

Any ideas?

Anyone?

So Very Quiet!

That is what I hear in my house.

All my little ones skipped happily off to school this morning. Actually, not really. D3 drove M and C so there was probably no skipping involved if he had anything to say about it. And J is really the only one truly happy about school starting back up. But she will get over that in about 2 weeks when the new of being a 3rd grader with her very own locker wears off.

So back to the quiet. There is the sound of D's fingers quietly tapping on his computer in the other room. There is the quiet hum of my computer as I check email and read some blogs. And I am surrounded by my own thoughts.

It is so very quiet!