Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Recalculating

“Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2) What an appropriate verse for today. Haven't been blogging about the WVU/MSU football game; haven't posted pictures of us at the GT game; haven't caught you up on the latest middle school dance team drama; haven't writting a blog in awhile. I received a call on Tuesday evening that my dad was in critical condition in the hospital in VA. Everything else takes backseat when you receive a phone call like that.

Unfortunately, my dad didn't make it through this illness; he passed away Wednesday afternoon after a long illness. So instead of all the plans I had for the weekend, everything in my world was recalculated, we traveled to WV for the memorial service, and now we're home. When I read this Bible verse, I thought about all the phone calls and e-mails I've received in the past week.

Everyone wants to do something to help. It took me so long to be able to say, "yes". It took me a long time to be able to accept the help that others are offering. It is not a sign of weakness; it is not a sign of need. It is a sign that if the tables were turned, I'd be the one who wanted to help. So when a neighbor called and said she wanted to bring dinner tonight, instead of telling her I was fine and she didn't need to do that, I simply said, "thank you" and "that's nice". She and her husband even joined us for dinner and we had a great time.

I'm sure there will be many examples of that in the days ahead; so I will receive when it is my turn to receive. By doing that, I will be ready to give back when the time comes.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Football in the South

On this, I must disagree with BooMama. I have enjoyed her fashion expertise; I've even stopped by my local Target to check out some items she's previewed for me. I'm still trying to find the Wal Mart yoga pants from last season that, once I find them, will be the most comfortable pants in my closet. I love her recipes; in fact, I picked up all necessary ingredients to try her delicious granola recipe. I love her blog and check in faithfully each day to see what Howard is up to. And I thought the blog of BooMama was as close to the real thing as Coke.

That is, until I was reading the hometown newspaper for my hometown (my original hometown in West Virginia, not the hometown I live in now). I always check to see if they're playing on TV in the south because once a Mountaineer, always a Mountaineer. I realized West Virginia University had its homecoming game next Saturday. Guess who they're playing?! BooMama's Mississippi State Bulldogs. I've even found myself cheering for the Bulldogs this season because I knew BooMama would be proud. That is, of course, because they weren't playing West Virginia.

But come Saturday, all bets are off. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to drop BooMama a note and have her cheer for both teams because I have been invited by Lynn and Clif to the Georgia Tech homecoming game. With FRONT. ROW. SEATS. ON. THE. 10. YARD. LINE!! And as if that's not enough, we're taking all the babies (decked out in their GT spiritwear, of course) so the chances of being on the (1) jumbotron and (2) TV are very high!

However am I going to concentrate on the duties-at-hand this week with all the excitement in the air this weekend??

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

I Do Love Me a Good Football Ballgame

...Subtitled "God Don't Like Bad".If you're a return visitor blog, you know that Oldest Child is on the dance team at her middle school. What you may not know is that her middle school team is undefeated, which makes for an exciting game because every team you play wants to knock you off. Last week we played a team who played "dirty ball". They tackled around the neck and tripped you if that didn't work. I can tell you anything and everything you ever wanted to know about Nascar, but my knowledge of football rules leaves a little to be desired. When I can tell there is something wrong, there is something definitely wrong. When I can see the penalty, there was definitely a penalty. But we won the game in the last minute by two points.

This week, the playoffs started. Guess who we played this week in the opening round of the playoffs?! You got it...the Bad Team...again...two weeks in a row. This time Bad Team brought more supporters with them. Our fans were there dressed in the green with their shakers ready to root, root, root for the home team (oh, wait...that's baseball). On our first offensive possession, the kid carrying the ball got tripped. The ref called it! A couple plays later, the Bad Team got called for a face mask...in the same possession they got called for whatever you call it when you tackle them around the neck! It was priceless...just priceless I tell you. We scored on that possession; we scored on the next possession, we got a safety on THEIR possession. All those yellow flags took the wind right out of their sails; hate it when that happens! They couldn't play fair, so they couldn't play at all.

Final score: 31-0...should have taken a picture and posted it for you to see! Moral of the story, play fair. God don't like bad. Some people can't play by the rules. And coming from Oh She Who Is a Rule Follower, I shook my shaker with all my might because every time they broke the rules, the refs called it!

Stay tuned next Wednesday (or Thursday...) for a recap of the regional championship game!

P.S. The dancers couldn't perform tonight because the PA system wasn't working, so there is no Oldest Child drama to report. Chances are it will be up and running next week, so the drama can continue; I know you wouldn't wanna miss that!

Sunday, October 7, 2007

I Did Not...

...feed them more than one piece of cake - I promise!


Let me explain these pictures. Several of you read my dear, sweet friend Lynne's blog over at And Babies Make Six and you know all about her triplets and older brother Austin. And you can imagine how much alone time she and her husband get; you can picture how often they get to go on an actual date. Well, Friday was Clif's birthday, my calendar was free on Friday evening, so I went to stay with the kiddos and Lynne got to take Clif out for sushi for his birthday.

Rewind to earlier in the day. Friday is a school day for all four kids; Lynne kept Youngest Child for me because it was a teacher workday. When they picked up the kids, they headed off for Stone Mountain to ride the train and play putt putt. DURING THE BABIES NAP TIME! So there was no nap on Friday. So there was no way the babies would be awake when Mom and Dad got home from their date, let alone be in a mood to eat birthday cake. So we sang and blew out candles before they left; the babies ate cake while they were gone (yes, we saved some for the birthday boy!). Fortunately, there were four people in the house ten and older, which meant there was one big person for every little person. Tyler is going to be the party animal of the group; he ate this birthday cake like there was no tomorrow. That baby enjoys birthdays...his, mine, dad's, or anybody's...he doesn't care - it's a birthday and that means cake. John is usually the neat one of the bunch...notice I say usually because that baby got icing places I didn't know icing could go. He would look at Tyler, rub chocolate through his hair, and laugh. They enjoyed the evening, we enjoyed the evening, Mom and the birthday boy enjoyed the evening. What's a little chocolate among friends?!

Clif took one look at the pictures and couldn't believe they got this messy from one, little, small piece of birthday cake. Well, rest assured, dear internets, that yes, I only fed them each one small piece of cake, and judging from the amount of icing on them, I'm fairly confident that not that much icing went in them.

They were all bathed, squeaky clean, and sound alseep by the time Mom and Dad returned from their nice quiet evening of eating sushi.