So, you know when you’re on a diet and all you can think about is food, so you rational all your meals and count down the minutes (minutes? Who am I kidding? SECONDS) until you can put another morsel in your mouth?

And you know when you’re bored at work and so you start doing things like saying, “I will use the restroom at 11am. I will eat lunch at 12:30. I will send an email to my sister at 2.” Anything to pass the time.

Or how about when you’re broke and you still have 10 days until payday so you start doing things like…maybe there’s $1 in the change holder in the car. And maybe I can stretch the last of the grocery money by buying nothing but Kraft Mac n’ Cheese, and I need to hold onto that last $20 to get gas next week…

And there are those times when all three of these worlds collide…?!?!?!

Yeah, so that’s about where I am right now.

Wendy tagged me to write to 10 people to say something I wouldn’t normally say. I’m not to name the person, I’m just to write how I feel. After reading Wendy’s blog, I’ve decided that it suits me better to say things I should say more often to certain people. I will name names for this one.

1. Julie: 95% of our relationship occurs on the phone. Interrupted, incoherent, and very rarely the only task either of us are focused on at the moment, the time I spend with you on the phone is still some of the best moments of my day. While I chose to remain in PA, there are so many times I wish I could stop by and help with a project, or come take the kids to McDonald’s for dinner and give you some time off. Or just sit down with you and talk. My only regret is that Mom never saw us get along like we do. She endured our childhood battles more than anyone, I wish she were here so she could see that you are, truly, my best friend.

2. Stacy: From the very first day I met you, you have been an inspiration to me. In that Human Relations class you shared unabashedly that the woman you admired most was a woman of the Bible. You said it might change in a week, when you started studying the next one in your Bible Study class. You were funny, open, honest and Christian and I learned so much from you then. Today you continue to inspire me. The example you give me on raising Christian children, the words of encouragement you give me when they are most needed, and just the general sense of support through prayer that I’ve always had from you. I miss you. I am so glad, however, that despite the many states between us, God has kept us close.

3. Chris: I owe you more than a paragraph, my girl. Last night, playing cards with LM (see blog below) I exclaimed RudeNESS! And realized how much I miss you. You were such a great influence to me in college. You were so funny and so smart and had such a great balance in life. You were a big sister to me in so many great ways. As adults, you have taught me such lessons I don’t even know where to begin. I will never in my life forget your wedding. I will never forget Kevin crying as you came down the aisle. The love that you two share is tangible to the rest of us. I will also never forget the phone calls that told me of Andrew and years later, of Abby. I remember shouting at Josh when Abby was born saying, “It’s too early!!!” I know that I wasn’t there to share in the daily grief of two babies taken back to Heaven, but I know that I learned so much from you during that time. I didn’t understand why, when you were pregnant with Rebecca. I didn’t understand how you could possibly…but again, you were there to teach. God is good, Chris, and you taught me that. God answers prayers. God is there with us every single day. God bless the Waden family, Chris, Kevin, Rebecca, Allison, and the two angels, Andrew and Abigail. I love you all.

4. Bear: You got all sappy on me when I blogged on your birthday, so bear with me. Just last night, Jules said that you really want to come to PA. You. She didn’t say she did (although I know that much) she said you. Now, maybe she’s just trying to be extra nice to me or something, but it touched me. When you come to my house, I put you to work. You fix things, you hang things, you get suckered into wrestling with my child for hours. I would never think it was a trip you’d volunteer for, just something you’d endure for your wife. You are a great brother, Bear. I’m glad you’re part of the family.

5. LM: There are times, as a parent, when you are prepared for your heart to be broken, or for your heart to be touched. You know that watching a school play will be a funny but proud moment. You know that teaching you to ride a bike will be the most excruciating thing your own heart will go through (for now). Last night you and I sat down to look over some charity information we had requested. We have decided as a family that we need to do more to share our blessings and we wanted to make an involved decision. Watching you watch a video on starving children in parts of the world that are just words to you, watching your expression as you saw the work they do for such little reward, the conditions they live in, the lack of absolutely ever creature-comfort we take for granted including clean water. But when you handed me the phone and just said, “Call, Mom. Call.” It was more than I could bear. You and I will learn a lot through this experience. We have already taken a look at our life and realized we are so incredibly blessed – beyond what we could ever deserve. Thank you, for being a child with such a big, soft, heart.

6. Garrett: No matter what is going on in my life or what the latest piece of little stress is all about, you always, ALWAYS have a funny story to tell me. From Hank the Hound (with the Huge Wanker) to nearly falling off a roof while talking on a cell phone, to walking into a sign because you’re too busy gawking at a hottie, you always make me laugh. Thanks for giving me a little humor in my life. Thanks for calling me nearly every day and keeping our relationship close. Thanks for being my buddy and for listening to me when things are rough.

7. Little Bird: I don’t know how it happened, girl. How is it that a girl who is EXACTLY like I was when I was 9, was born to my sister? You and I both love horses and ponies and cats. We both love dolls and playing dress up. We both love to do nice little things for people. We both color meticulously. When I had prayed nearly 10 years ago that God would give me an Emily to love, I didn’t know he would give you to me as my niece. I am so glad to have you, I am so glad that we will get to see each other this summer!

8. George: Oh, George. You are a bundle of boy. You are mischievous, funny, clever, disobedient, and sometimes even crude, but you make me laugh. “Mom, it smells like farts in here.” I will laugh at that for weeks! Your cute dimply smile will get you far in your life. Those huge eyes will make most everyone forgive you anything. Thank you for being you. Even when you drive your mom crazy, I will always think you are funny and cute. I’m proud to be your Aunt Fred.

9. Gabe: This leash matter has to be solved, my boy, but even so, even when you nearly devour the neighbors cat THROUGH the glass door, even when you think you need to frighten a 5-pound terrier with your massive bark, even when you bark out the window for 20 minutes at a lawn chair that has blown off someone’s patio, I still love you. I love that you go to bed when I do, and that you put your head by my pillow and wait for a little rub and for me to say “Goodnight, Gabe” before you lay down. I love that you will sit just outside of the kitchen, drooling as you wait for me to give you a piece of peanut butter sandwich each morning. I love that when I am on the couch watching a movie, you will lay down as close to me as you can on the floor, even if it means you have to slide the coffee table to get there. I love that when I’m on the computer, you will come put your head over the back of the couch as if you’re reading over my shoulder. I am so glad we got you. I am so glad we have you. I am so glad you are there to brighten my days and give me some nuzzling after a long day.

10. God: I couldn’t have this list at all if He didn’t make all things possible. If He hadn’t brought these people (and dog) into my life with such purpose and reason. I am so grateful for the life that I have. I am even more grateful for the people that I have within my life. God is responsible, and to Him I give the praise.

It’s not quite the same, Wendy, but I hope this will do.

To anyone out there who wants to be tagged for a good list or a bad one, consider yourself “It!”

Before he even looked, he steadied himself, preparing for anything. He pressed his lips together tightly knowing his smile would deceive him if given any opportunity. He wouldn’t look at me fearful that a glance would entice the smile to creep out. With pursed lips, serious, focused eyes, he stared and said, “I’ll keep ‘em.”

I laid out three cards on the table between us and waited. He tried to hold his face as he looked again at his cards and said, “I’ll keep ‘em.” I dealt out another card and then finally the last. His face, unnaturally contorted as he tried to remain serious and untelling, starts to crack as he consults the reference card he has at his side. Without warning all emotion releases in a great outburst as he flings his arms into the air and waves them wildly shouting, “I have a FLUSH!!!”

Calmly, I watch his celebratory couch dance. After some time, I ask, “Would you like to know what I have?”

Realizing his glory dance might have been premature, he becomes completely still, awaiting the verdict.

“I have a pair of Kings.”

He waits for a moment, consults the reference card once again, watching my face to see if I’ll give any clues as to the meaning of my words, if I’ll translate that into a verdict for him.

He finally lights up again and says, ‘I won! I won!”

Thoughts race through my head that perhaps teaching him to play one of my favorite card games was a bad decision, perhaps he will take poker too seriously.

The next hand goes remarkably the same. A puckered up face that tells more because it has been obscured than if it had been left alone. Throughout the play, he continues to declare confidently that he’ll keep his cards, barely allowing his mouth enough flexibility to speak. Finally, as the last card is played, he throws his cards down on the table and says, “I was just bluffing.” I look down at his cards and say, “Nice bluff. But you don’t have to bluff when you have a Full House.”

“I have a what?!?” “I won! I won!”

Yes, I think I have created a poker monster.

Please send all correspondence to me c/o Satan in Burning, Hell.

The dentist told me I need to sleep with someone.

Ooookkkay, so he didn’t say that in so many words, but he implied that it would be helpful to know if the pain I was having was from grinding or clenching my teeth while I sleep (a habit I had as a child, which my sister can attest to.)

Without an ear witness to tell me if it’s grinding, it’s too early to see wear on my teeth, so we’ll have to wait and see if it persists or subsides – it might just be stress.

If it persists, they’ll make me a nightguard.

That’ll be sexy.

I forgot to eat breakfast.

Oh bother.

Morning seems so long when all you can think about is lunch.

Quakertown, PA – An innocent woman was struck in the back of the head by a sailing, long, white paper at a local chain restaurant on Monday evening. An eye witness to the crime, a waiter, reports seeing the tubing fly from the near vicinity of a juvenile, reportedly eating dinner with his mother. When questioned, the mother stated, “I was turning my head back to my son, to mock him for missing me yet again, when I saw the look of guilt and horror upon his face. I realized something was terribly wrong.”

Laughter was heard from the booth behind the mother, and the server quickly quipped to the juvenile, “so that was you, huh?” upon arriving at the table with dinner. Witnesses report the juvenile quickly regained a sense of manners and apologized to the innocent woman in the booth behind his mother. All parties were heard chuckling about the incident for the better part of dinner.

The juvenile was reprimanded on the scene for having such horrible aim. The mother vowed he would undergo in-home lessons before trying the art of straw-wrapper shooting in public again. She asked that names be withheld, knowing the child’s grandfather would be greatly disappointed in the miss. He surely taught the boy better.

I have a love/hate relationship with the grocery store. I love the brightly lit aisles. I love the expansive produce section. I love twofer deals at the meat counter. I love an entire row that is filled with nothing but bread. But I hate that I have no use for 95% of the food there. I hate that while I think it’s such an interesting place to meet people, no one talks to each other at the groc. I hate that I can have only a basket full of necessities and it’s still $50.

I’m going over my grocery list so we can get our weekly shop out of the way this evening and enjoy the amazing weather this weekend. My grocery list could serve as an adequate ‘personals’ description. You know everything worth knowing about me from my list.

In its entirety: (italic items added by LM)

Cat litter
Craker cheese
Eggs
Sandwich bags
Freezer bags – gallon and quart size
Folder (for homework)
Index card file
Index cards (100)
Eggs
Lemonade
Cracker
Salad in a bag
Ground beef
Toilet paper
Stamps
Oranges
Calcium supplements (1500)
Milk
Water
String cheese
Green pepper
Breakfast bars
Toothbrush for Bocaj
Tooth paste

What can you tell about me? A) I’m a mom. From a new folder for his homework, to the index cards and file I need for his Latin lessons, I’m a mom. B) I’m getting older. Calcium supplements mandated by the doc reminds me that time isn’t slowing down any. C) Memory is the first thing to go – eggs are on the list twice. D) I’m a pet owner. E) I don’t stop for breakfast. F) I’m unadventurous. There is nothing exotic on the list, nothing even remotely gourmet. Ground beef and green pepper? Yikes. I need some variety! G) I’m lazy. I want dinner to be quick and easy. Salad in a bag? I go for convenience over organic.

If I knew how to cook differently, if I enjoyed preparing more elaborate meals, if I were more focused on the environment, recycling, or organic health, I might have a list that would read:

Tilapia
Fresh dill, basil and thyme, rosemary
Lemons
Roma tomatoes
Mango
Arugola (I don’t even know how to spell it)
Shitake mushrooms
Blue cheese
Veal cutlets
Red potatoes
Olive oil
Asparagus
Whole wheat flour
Seltzer
Humus
Balsamic vinegar
Shallots
Brown rice

I remember years ago, a co-worker asking if I wanted to share a hoagie for lunch. Why not? She asked what kind, and picky-eater me said, “whatever – you pick” and then thought, “Oh my gosh, what did I just do?!” She came back with a turkey and cheddar with sweet and hot peppers, oregano, onion, tomato, and lettuce. My pick would have been ham and American dry/plain. Oh my. But I loved the hoagie and I wasn’t sure why it was that I had never ventured to try anything else. Maybe I should start trying one new recipe a week, or buying one “new” item at the grocery store each week. Maybe I’m just a stick-in-the-mud. Maybe this is what happens when you grow up in the Midwest with farm kids for parents. I have never eaten much seafood at all. The salads I make are either Caesar or tossed. Vegetables come out of a can or the freezer and I do nothing to them except add salt and pepper or sometimes a little butter. While I don’t currently serve them, I would certainly consider applesauce (homemade) and some kind of bread to be suitable side dishes. I even have JELLO in my cabinet!! I’m doomed, I really doomed.

You can take the girl out of Illinois, but you can’t take Illinois out of the girl, apparently.

I need help, don’t I? Is there such a thing as a “learning to cook as a grown up” book? Should I just add this ability to the list of must-have’s for a significant other?

There’s nothing quite like it all year long. The first step outside where the rain lingers on the sidewalk, the smell of grass and dirt in the air. The conversation of the birds louder this morning, happy and lyrical.

It’s the sort of day that should only happen on a Saturday. Where you pack up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a bag of chips and lemonade and head out on the road to a park you haven’t been to all year. Where you’ll walk through damp paths in the woods, feeling the warmth of the sun on your face, reflections of light on the water. The sort of day where everyone should own a dog. Where frolicking in the fallen leaves from last fall, having shoes and paws full of mud from the damp, warm earth, when you sit on a rock or a bench and feel the cool dampness of spring rising.

It’s the sort of day that makes the winter tolerable. Having memories of days of hope carries you through the cold, bitter, winter months. A day where you take in a deep breath and exhale with the realization that there is life after all. And life is good. Days like today make me appreciate living in a region where there are four seasons. Only with the winter do we truly appreciate the spring.

These are the days when it takes all my willpower to not start planting the flower boxes. Knowing there will be frosts yet to come, it’s still the delicate days, given only here and there, unexpectedly, teasingly. But these days remind us that the planting days are coming, that the deck will soon be colorful and overflowing with draping flowers, singing birds and pollinating bees.

Today we turned the corner into spring. Today is a beautiful day.

My day started with a scale, a speculum and a shot in the ass.

It can only go uphill from here, right?

RIGHT?!?!

I prefer tulips, thanks.

A woman in my office hollered across the hallway yesterday, “I guess I’m not moving to South Dakota anytime soon.”

I am grateful that we live in a country where we have such freedom of opposing viewpoints and yet I am always startled when someone says something with such a presumption that you must certainly agree with them.

Fact is, I don’t. Not on this one.

I believe that as human beings, we have every say so over our own bodies and should not have dictates handed to us from our government over what we can and cannot do with them. If you want to have surgery for bigger boobs, penile implants, to change from a woman to a man, you go right ahead. I do not see in any way, however, how abortion has to do with a choice over a woman’s body. If she wants a choice over being pregnant or not, her choice fell in advance of the sexual act that created the pregnancy, not after. I recognize that in cases of rape, a woman did NOT have a choice over the sexual act. I still believe that child has a choice and there are options for the woman that do not include killing the child.

If a woman wants me to extend to her the right to decide for herself whether or not she should be pregnant than I ask her to extend the right to the child she is carrying. If we all have rights over our own bodies, then let that little child speak as to whether or not it would like to live…it has a right to it’s own life, certainly…

Oh, but it CAN’T speak.

So we allow a pregnant woman to speak FOR it.

I could argue this in a hundred directions with many examples only to be countered with someone saying “it’s a fetus, not a child”. I wonder if that person has ever been pregnant. I wonder if they have ever seen a fetus the size of a grain of rice on an ultrasound monitor, or heard a heartbeat twice as fast as their own, or even before that, just had a gut feeling that something was being created within them. I have a picture of a grain of rice sized fetus from the only ultrasound we ever had. His name is Jacob. I wonder how many women would go through with an abortion if they saw that fetus on an ultrasound first. There is no question that it is alive. There is no question that it is part of you. There is no question that it is your child.

I know women who have gone to great lengths to have a child. I know women who have had babies without issue. I know women who have become pregnant without planning to. I know women who have been pregnant at the wrong time, in the wrong place in life, or with the wrong person and have given the baby up for adoption. I know women who have adopted. Not one of these women that I know would go back in time and choose abortion. Not. One.

I recognize that women do not agree on this issue. I recognize that many women feel it is their unalienable right to choose whether or not to be pregnant. I couldn’t agree more. I simply disagree as to when that choice can be made. Actions have consequences. I do not believe in any situation that murder is excusable for a mistake in judgment.

If you want the right to choose, then allow the baby the right to the same choice. After all, she might be a woman, too.

___________

I welcome all comments to this post, on either side of this issue. I simply ask that you demonstrate respect for the opposing view, that is what makes us Americans.