1,000 Words (and some change)

Since I can't come up with anything overly exciting today (yes, this is getting to be a bad habit, I realize - I do have some thoughts on the Evangelical Manifesto, but honestly I don't have time to put them together in a less than haphazard manner. I also have some thoughts on why I'm seriously worried about my church - again, lacking the time to put something reasonable together.) I will instead leave you with this:


I'm not sure he could get any cuter if he tried.

Random Things

*We had dinner with the Speaks family this evening over at their lovely home. It was tasty and fun! It was in the name of dropping off our Ergo for them to use with Jesse on their upcoming trip to Disney - but honestly, any old excuse will do as far as I'm concerned. Getting over there was humorous because Tim was navigating and read the mileage off the Google Map directions wrong - so we turned right onto one road and he said to go .7 miles. Well, .7 miles went by, then 1.7 miles and just as we were getting ready to turn around (at about 2.3 miles) there was our road. It was then that he realized that he was reading the wrong line for the mileage. Glad we didn't turn around!

*Since it's been a week now, I am not only amazed but also thrilled at the winner of America's Next Top Model. Seriously, I didn't think they'd actually let her win - but they did and I think she honestly deserved it. Yay!

*I'm still trying very hard to care about Hell's Kitchen...it's an uphill battle though. Just way too...soap opera-y.

*I've read (some are re-reads, I'll grant) six books in the last 4 days. It's a mood, I know. But it's so nice. I figure since I read them aloud to Joshua that it's actually a good thing to be doing. And hey, this is probably the only time in his life he'll appear to enjoy a romance novel. (I skip the racy bits though, just in case. No need to poison his mind subconsciously.)

*I've started up a new round of teaching (online) and just did my first rash of "Dear student: You've enrolled in my class...now how about you show up?" emails. Ah, adult education. (Yeah, that was sarcastic.)

*The combination of rice cereal in the mornings and an ability to roll over at will have started making for superb sleeping. Praise God! Generally speaking, Joshua sleeps from about 8 to at least 4:30 (at which time he'll eat and then go back to sleep for another 2 or 2.5 hours). Being rested is a good thing!

*PhD stuff is perking along. Though I found a pile of papers that I meant to read for my review of literature a while ago that I "filed" and never read. Guess I know what I'll be reading to the kiddo for the next couple of days.

In the Mood to Just Drive

"Let's go for a drive."

This is something mom and dad would say with regularity when I was growing up. And we would all pile in the van and just toodle here or there aimlessly. Sometimes we'd creak through neighborhoods on the Mesa looking at the newer houses, sometimes we'd head into the mountains or down the road toward Santa Fe. It was rare that there was ever a direction in mind, though often we'd find ourselves at the house of one friend or another and stop by to say hello.

Today, I'm in the mood for a drive. Just random wanderings through the countryside with no destination in mind. Maybe we'd end up at Monticello. Or Montpelier. Or just wander over toward the Shenandoah and see horse country. We could head north, into western Maryland or Delaware or southern Pennsylvania.

I'd be content with anywhere, provided it was a ramble with no destination and you only know it's time to turn around because you want to go home.

Insert Post Here

I seem to be caught in a whirlpool of "should" with a little "ought to" thrown in - and that's just never a good mix because it means that, most often, I seek solace in books and end up doing neither what I should nor what I ought.

I have, however, been doing some lovely reading lately. (Though I'll spare you reviews as I know I do too many of those already - but I have a hard time turning down free books when all I have to do is read them and then tell people my opinions. Cause I love to read. And I have lots of opinions. And I've never really been shy about sharing them. I know that last comes as a bit of a shock.)

Of course, I say I'm going to spare you the reviews - but let me backpedal a little and say that I'm reading a mystery anthology of short stories (Death Dines in) and, while I'm normally not an anthology kind of gal, nor am I normally a short story kind of gal, I'm enjoying just about all of the stories and have found a few authors that I'm going to have to investigate further. Which is, of course, the whole reason authors participate in anthologies in the first place. What's even better is that I paid a whole quarter for it at our church yard sale. Definitely got my money's worth out of this one!

On top of that, I'm fighting a funk. There's no good reason for the funk - though perhaps I could blame all of the lovely rain we've been getting. (If you push aside the fact that, generally, I love rain and it's much more likely to make me happy than said. But still.) And that is probably the real root of the lack of posting lately - funks just aren't good company. (But hey, at least if I decide to eat them, I have plenty of worms available!)

Book Review: Healing Promises

My latest book review/blog tour book is Healing Promises, the second in the "Defenders of Hope" series by Amy Wallace. I haven't read the first book, so I started out at a little bit of a disadvantage for a few of the characters, but I didn't feel like I missed anything all things being equal. This book very easily stands on its own as a good read. This book tells the story of FBI Agent Clint Rollins as he works with his Crimes Against Children Unit to try and apprehend a kidnapper who inevitably ends up killing his victims before it's too late for the latest victim. At the same time, Clint and his wife Sara (an oncologist) face difficulties at home as Clint is diagnosed with cancer when he is admitted for routine treatment of a gunshot.

The FBI story is well written and intriguing. But the secondary plot line, that of how Clint and Sara battle their doubts of God's love in the midst of Clint's cancer that I enjoyed the most - because Amy Wallace allowed these characters to be real. And the people who interacted with them were real. And so you were able to get a glimpse of the anguish Christians suffer when they are paralyzed with fear and doubt and their faith slips a little in the midst of painful circumstances - and you see how that doubt leads to guilt because it's unwelcome and yet, it's there.

I enjoyed this and didn't really want to put it down except at a chapter break (and only then if I really had to.) I'll have to see if my church library has the first one in the series and catch up.

The Sense to Come In Out of the Rain

We have been getting a preponderance of rain here lately - to the point that I'm wondering what an ark would cost in today's dollar. However, there are some side effects of said rain that are just now beginning to become apparent. First is the fact that our lawn is looking particularly nice. It's green and squishy and, should the rain ever stop, it would be perfect for playing in and I'd enjoy plopping the little one in it to see what he thinks. Of course, the down side to this lovely lawn is two-fold: it has to be mowed with disturbing frequency (the which is challenging as it's rarely dry) and it just will provide a more striking contrast to the extreme deadness that will greet us come late July.

Like many in this area, Tim and I spend quite a bit of time in our basement. When we moved in, the basement was not finished. And after some hemming and hawing and estimate gathering, we spent a good two years of weekends (with several breaks thrown in) finishing it on our own. Since we didn't need the space, it made more sense to do it ourselves. And honestly? Tim and I enjoy doing home improvement type things and we work well together, so it wasn't the marriage breaker that these types of projects seem to be for other people. (In fact, I'd say we had quite a bit of fun with it - I imagine Tim would agree. Though we were both happy to have it finished because two years of weekends is a long time no matter how you count it.)

When my family moved to this area (when I was little), the house we bought also had an unfinished basement. My parents did similar hemming and hawing about finishing it, so we had a nice, creepy and dark basement for a little while. Basements were new things for my sister and me - I think our other house might have had a crawl space, but I'm not positive. Our friend down the block had a little bit of a cellar (much more a cellar than a basement - only an outside entrance and so forth) that we went in maybe twice, and that on a dare. Still, moving to this area basements were the norm and the storage space was welcome. Plus, it provided a space for my sister to do her science experiment on the effect of acid rain on earthworms.

Essentially, we had pots and pots of dirt full of earthworms in the basement and every so often, my sister would go down and "rain" various concentrations of acid water onto the "earth" and then check the death toll a few days after that. I'm pretty sure the experiment was only over a month or so. Regardless, it seemed that the worms in the super acidic soil just leapt from the pot, figuring that any environment was better than their current locale. And so we stepped on worm carcasses for many, many months. In fact, I only remember being free from those dessicated husks when the carpeting had been laid.

I've always figured that, despite the fact that the builders didn't put down any topsoil before laying our sod, we had a reasonable number of worms in our yard. I base this solely on our enormous robin population, but that seems to be a relatively reasonable assumption. Still, my sister's science experiment has been at the top of my mind since the recent deluges began, because my desk in the basement office sits near the sliding glass door. And so it is that I roll over at least two worms a day as they leave the yard for drier climes. Let's not even count the ones I squish with my slippers (because I'm not going barefoot down here until the rain stops.) Honestly though? I don't mind those too much, because, while gross, I can simply grab a tissue, wipe the guts off the floor (and my slipper) and send the corpse off to a watery burial in the sewer system. It's the ones that manage to wriggle their way under furniture and there proceed to shrivel to death, perfuming the air with the unmistakable perfume of worm decomposition that I truly mind - because the wood grain in our laminate is just about the same color, length, and general shape as worm corpses, and that makes them very hard to find.

A New Theme

I just uttered what I'm sure will become my theme song for the next two or so years..."No, no, Joshua, we don't pull on mommy's glasses."

I wish I could wear contacts.

Fun With the Kiddo

So I'm hanging out with the little one who just got up from his nap and is in a cheery, playful mood (currently trying to eat the keyboard), and I was reading him my email and various blog posts and he was chatting back with me and then Cassi curled up under my chair.

And then I remarked to the kiddo that daddy needed to brush Cassi's teeth, cause dang.

And then he grinned his "I'm so cute and innocent" grin.

And now I will go change him and apologize to the puppy.

Tempted to Post Another ToDo List

Because that's how exciting things are around here right now. Absolutely nothing to blog about except the boring mundanity of life. (I'm not sure if mundanity is a word, but it sounds cool in my head, so I'm going with it.)

I did manage to get a reasonable draft of chapter 1 of my dissertation proposal written the other day. And the bathrooms are clean. The beds are stripped (though the sheets are not washed nor are there new sheets on the mattress) and the laundry is sorted (as much as our laundry ever actually gets sorted. I'm a "college laundry" gal, and will be until such time as I actually need to do separate loads of various types and colors. Because I just don't see using all that water when you can throw it all together on cold and be done. That sound you hear right now? That's my mother's head exploding. She had finally gotten used to the idea that I don't iron my pillow cases and now this.)

Hypothetical question: If a baby spit up on the carpet and you blotted it up with your t-shirt (hey, it was handy) is that enough, or does it actually need carpet cleaner and scrubbing?

I need to go to the grocery store and get the various sundries for lunch on Sunday (to be attended by the whole clan). We're doing simple-but-yummy: slow cooked shredded beef on yeast rolls with marinated and grilled zucchini and squash with a chocolate berry roll for dessert.

Question: Would you be comfortable leaving something cooking in the oven while you went to church? Or is this a guaranteed recipe for burning down your house? Cause the slow cooked part of the beef means that it needs to cook at 250 for 8 hours. And if we're having lunch, not a continental dinner, that means cooking while at church. Or doing it a day ahead and reheating. Thoughts?

We now return you to your regularly scheduled...whatever. I'm either going to the store or start with the joy of chapter 2: the review of literature. Whee.