love never fails

I read the passage below to my boys today.

I’ll be honest, when I opened the Bible to read,

my middle son disappointedly said, “Ohh.”

I told him I understood and that I felt that way

when I was a child sometimes too;

I was a Pastor’s kid ya' know.

But I also told him that this is his only floatation device

that will work when the storms come, he smiled,

and baby, they will come.

I said I know he didn’t fully understand what I was saying

but one day, when he was older, he would.

The world offers a beautiful buffet of wonderful and

customized distractions all conveniently within our reach.

But like sugar, they give us that quick, temporary high

and then the crash follows leaving us craving for something more.

It is my job to prepare my children to focus on the positive

and reach for the right tools during the hard times

they will inevitably encounter.

I want awesome things that will last in their survival kit.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I Corinthians 13

Thanks Mom and Dad

& Grandma and Grandpa

for giving me some pretty awesome

tools in my survival kit.

hearts and more hearts

I hung up our melted-crayon, wax-paper
 hearts this week. Martha Stewart has an easy

 step-by-step guide if you are interested
 in making them.

They do add that extra color

that is desperately lacking in the month of February.

I also cut out some little, paper hearts

 and put happy words on them.

Later on, when we went to a park,

which the boys lovingly call, “The Dinosaur Park,”

I taped a couple of the hearts around the playground.

My boys asked if it was alright to do that.

I told them it was O.K.

Plus it wasn’t permanent and when

we come back another day I would take the tape off.

Those hearts made me smile.

And thinking of some tired mother

or lonely child reading them

makes me smile even bigger!

Have a great day!



happy birthday

My husband is taking me and the boys

 out to my favorite restaurant tonight for my birthday, Sushi Hana!

 I wanted my sons to love sushi as much

 as I do and they do!

 I can not wait!

 My favorite is a roll called “I Like That Roll!”

 It looks like a mini-volcano because it has

 crab meat piled high on top.

Yum!

~ ~ ~

Reading:

 Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
 (Dr. Betty Edwards)

 &
How People Change (Lane/Tripp)

Listening:

 Inge’s Playlist on iTunes

 includes ~  Coldplay, Feist, Nora Jones, She & Him, Todd Agnew and Shania Twain

Enjoying:

 The sun coming out today, my family,

 sweet cards and Facebook posts from friends

Wearing:

 a huge, pink, flower ring, a retro Superman tee-shirt and jeans

Wrapping:

 a present for my niece’s birthday tomorrow

Learning:

 to pass on things I haven’t used in years

Laughing:

 at this video

Finishing:

 setting up my middle son’s room

 in my oldest son’s empty room

Starting:

 to walk again

& decorating for Valentine’s Day

If you are ever in the Baltimore area,

 check out where my sister and I ate last night!

 Delicious!!



treadmill 101

Turn off the treadmill before leaping off like a Superhero to save your child from imminent danger.

I was on a treadmill at the gym two weeks ago. My husband was walking next to me and the boys were playing on a jungle gym where we could see them. I like exercising with my husband because it feels like a date and his dance moves on the treadmill crack me up. I had done all the weight machines and was three minutes into my warm up on the treadmill when my youngest decides to pull a Houdini move and go through a tiny slot in a step about eight feet from the ground. My mother instincts again flew into high gear and I knew this wasn’t going to end well! Sure enough, he got stuck with his arms twisted above his head and he couldn’t get back up or down; he was just dangling there…stuck! Like any Super-Hero-Mom, I instantly turned to leap off the treadmill to rescue him. Except I didn't turn the machine off!!! I ended up taking the biggest tumble of my life!!! I twisted and fell very hard on my shin and when I tried to get back up, I fell again and the treadmill proceeded to sheer off the skin on my left knee.

I heard people around me gasp and ask if I was alright but I just bounced back up and raced over to save my son. I lifted him up so he could maneuver his arms around and come through the slot and set him gently down on the ground. As soon as he was safe, I felt this intense pain in my knee and leg that took my breath away. I hobbled over to a bench and asked my son, “What were you doing?” trying my best to sound like Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother!  Another wave of pain overtook me and I told my middle son to tell dad that we needed “to go now” as I fought back tears. I lifted up my yoga pants and saw my knee was bloody. Somehow, I managed to hobble out of the gym without making eye contact with anyone…then into to the car and then into the house.

my knee; you really don't want to see my shin

As soon as I got home, I elevated my leg and started icing the growing egg on my shin. I knew it was bad by the size of the swelling. I didn’t think I broke my bone but it didn’t look good. I couldn’t walk that night and could barely sleep. The next couple of days I stayed off my leg as much as possible and kept icing and elevating it. After a week my shin was still very swollen and still in pain so I went to my doctors where she wanted x-rays taken Stat! The next day I had to see an orthopedic doctor and I was more than relieved that all was O.K. there were no fractures and that the swelling and severe bruising would subside. Of course, he added - to stay off the treadmill for a while. Nice!

I’m kind of hesitant to go back to the gym as I am sure people will recognize me as “that girl who fell hard.” And of course, I had to fall in January when the gym is packed with people striving hard to keep up their New Year’s Resolutions! In time, I will go back, as soon as the pain subsides and the swelling goes away.

As I grow older, I am more confident in who I am and who I am becoming and care less about others' perceptions of me, and they are only perceptions.

I leave you with this quote that has really encouraged me when I have felt like giving up!

 Press On

 Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.

Talent will not;

Nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.

Genius will not;

Unrewarded genius is almost legendary;

Education will not;

The world is full of educated derelicts.

Perseverance and Determination alone are omnipotent.

- US President Calvin Coolidge

happy ice decorations

The weather has been very cold and as grey and gloomy as Eeyore. So I made some happy, colored, ice decorations to hang on the tree out back and they turned out pretty cute!

I filled five silicone, heart baking cups with water and put a couple drops of red food coloring in them and set them outside to freeze. It was colder than the ‘Hundred Years of Winter’ in Narnia so they froze pretty quickly. Next, I put cold water in a cake pan and set it out side for about an hour to chill. When I brought the cake pan back inside, I popped the red hearts out of the baking cups and put them in the cake pan and then set a small glass in the top where the ribbon would go. I put the whole pan back outside. Again, it froze pretty quickly. When it was completely frozen, I brought the pan back in for a couple minutes and the heat in the house loosened the ice and it slid right out. The glass somehow tilted and a little water froze underneath. I just filled the glass with hot water twisted the glass out and then chipped the ice away to finish the hole for the ribbon.

I really liked how it turned out!

The heart one was easy too. I just took a Jello mold, filled it with water and put a couple drops of red food coloring. I set it outside and stuck the middle of a pink, satin ribbon down in the water and it froze with that little bit of ribbon inside. I then popped it out and tied it up on a branch where the boys and I could see it.

It’s something small but it adds a bit of color to my day!