While it would be easy to blame Tom Brady the imposter, the one who was at the SuperBowl last night but was clearly NOT the Tom Brady we have come to know and love, for the tremendous loss – no, loss doesn’t even describe what occurred last night – meltdown? humiliation? debacle? I must admit, it really is my fault and my fault alone.

You see, earlier in the season, when the pundits started whispering about “the perfect season” I may have not- so-quietly quipped that I wished the Pats would lose – just one – but lose, nontheless. Because in my mind, I hate to see cheaters prosper and even if half a dozen other teams in the league (or more) were doing exactly what the Pats were caught doing, commonality doesn’t make it right. And so I might have said, “just lose one”. Might have. I’m just saying.

So for those of you like me, who were screaming at your television set last night; for those of you, who, like me, may have thrown a thing or two in the direction of the television; for everyone who was still shaking their head in complete disbelief even today, you can blame me.

I am so sorry. I never intended for the ONE game to be the BIGGEST game of them all.

Be careful what you wish for.

(If for some chance it was not my wish that made it so, it may very well have been the RED sweatshirt Bill was wearing on the sidelines last night. Everyone knows you don’t suddenly change the color after you’ve won 18 in a row!!! Stick with the grey, Coach!)

5:15 am – LM is in the shower, I am on the couch watching the scrolling list of closures across the TV screen while I watch the latest weather updates.

5:30 – LMasks for an update. So far, school is on, but more and more cancellations are coming up as I watch.

5:35 – LM gets breakfast, reading his latest James Patterson book. Mom watches the announcement that the school she’s to sub at today is closed. Not good news. The computer is booted up, hoping to pick up a sub position elsewhere today.

5:45 – LM is brushing his teeth with just a few minutes before we head out to meet the bus at the curb. Mom opens the bathroom door and announces LM’s school has been closed. LM gives a shout for glee!

5:50 – Mom starts to search the computer for the one last district that isn’t closed yet hoping for a sub job.

5:52 – Mom sees the last school district in the area announced as closed on the TV. Mom gives a frustrated moan. LM is stationed on the couch, already absorbed in his book.

I can’t wait for us to both cheer when we have a snow day.

I was at school to pick up LM on Tuesday and happened to see a sign for the Valentine’s Day Dance. Later, I asked him if he was buying the tickets of if his date was (since she asked him).

“Tickets? I didn’t know we needed tickets!”

“They are only $5, it’s not a big deal. I’ll give you the money for the tickets. I was surprised (but secretly delighted) to see that the dance was right after school from 3-5 on that Thursday.”

“What?! I thought it was during school! I don’t want to stay after school for a dance!”

Apparently, if he had only known some of the details, he might have given a very different answer when asked to go.

When Stacy recommends a book, I don’t waste any time getting my hands on it. I was only aware that this book struck her in ways that pushed her Christian thinking outside the box i some areas – I knew nothing else about the journey I was about to embark upon. Yesterday was a snow day, so I thought it was the perfect time to begin reading. It turns out, it was the perfect day to devour a book and be let with so many thoughts and questions happily swirling in my mind that I know this will not be a book I forget anytime soon.

I really don’t want to say much about this book other than to recommend it to everyone I know (which is exactly what the back cover said I’ll want to do). Greatly and unjustly simplified, it is an account of a Christian man’s struggle to understand the purpose of evil in this world. While I find myself a skeptic whenever an experience is related to me that I cannot reconcile with the tangible world, I know there are times when things occur that cannot be explained with anything tangible. Whether or not you believe that the events of this novel took place as written the concepts of God, judgment, evil, and perception are still as intriguging and thought-provoking. I could declare Mack’s account as hogwash and still spend days or weeks in theological debate over some of the ideas presented.

Before leaving you with a direct invitation to follow Mack’s journey for yourself, I want to assure you that I cannot fathom any way that the implications of this novel would be offensive to anyone’s faith in God. By ‘thought-provoking’ and ‘intriguing’, I only mean that in the most positive ways, my understanding of God and love and faith has been broadened by this novel.

I would already be re-reading this novel if only I hadn’t felt so compelled to share it that Iimmediately placed it in the mail to a friend of mine whom I know will greatly enjoy it – and will respond with incredible thoughts and questions. Go get a copy for yourself – while you’re there, pick up an extra, I guarantee you’ll think of so many people to share it with before you’re done.

As always, thank you, Stacy.

I think this was a library book sale choice, another book I picked up knowing very little at all about the plot. I even violated my own rule of never buying a book with “Oprahs’ Book Club” stamped on the front. But who’s to be picky when it’s $1?

Fall On Your Knees is an epic tale. Spanning generations, this novel takes the reader in and around characters within one family, mainly four sisters, like a rollercoaster ride with many twists and turns, plunges and steep climbs. But instead of leaving my heart racing and my hands gripping the wheel while I screamed for more, I found this novel difficult to get in to initially, and unappealing in many places. While I was curious in the end to see the explanations and choices that led up to some of the events that had taken place earlier in the pages, I could have just as easily set the book down and never picked it up again. The setting, the characters, the challenges, the choices, the behaviors were all so foreign – things I could not begin to relate to nor understand – that I struggled to find personal meaning in the book at all.

I don’t know when I first heard of this book, but it has been in the back of my mind for a few months now. I picked it up over Christmas with a gift certificate and again, did not so much as read the back cover before I started reading. I finished this bok a few weeks ago, but just haven’t sat down to write a review until now.

The critical decision upon which the entire plot is based happens within the first few pages of the book. The reader is immediately caught up in the moral choice of a father to sequester away a daughter born with Down Syndrome, telling his wife that this twin did not survive birth.

I had a difficult time swallowing the events that followed. Of believing that it could be so simple for the daughter to end up in another’s hands, eventually skirted away to a distant city to be raised. My heart ached for the mother; completely unaware of her daughter’s life, processing her grief and heartache while hr knowing husband keeps silent.

The novel takes us through two decades of time. We witness the effects of the lie, the walls constructed to protect the liar, the lie, and the truth from being set free. It is no surprise the difficulties that arise in the marriage.

What was surprising to me, however, was how the characters reacted to the truth. How the author tried to demonstrate to the reader that the father never let go of the idea of his daughter despite never retracting his lie- never giving his family the right to know. I was angered by his selfishness; angered by his success; angered at what he perceived love to be about; angered that the worst that came to him was living with the lie.

I can clearly see how the plot has attracted a readership with its uniqueness. I can see how some are drawn in to play witness to the idea of redemtive love. For me, however, it was too easy, it didn’t come at a high enough price, the regret wasn’t deep enough to feel tangible. It is the wife, in the end, who is left to demonstrate forgiveness, love, and innocent regret. It was never a question to me that the wife was capable of these things from the start. She was just never given the chance to be by the one who supposedly loved her most.

He was a little too eager for H.A.L.T. tonight. Said he already knew what his highs and lows were going to be. He worked on S.A.T. practice while I got dinner together and then after grace was said I jumped right into H.A.L.T. eager to hear his answers.

But LM wouldn’t rush the moment. He insisted I go first.

“Fine. My low today is that I ran out of quarters before I ran out of laundry. Now you.”

“My low is that my arm hurt today.”

“That’s your low? We waited all night for that?”

“No, you’re waiting for my high.”

“Oh, fine, what’s your high?”

“No, you go first,” he insisted.

“Fine. Kill me with the suspense. My high is that while I didn’t sub today, I am booked for 9 of the next 11 days.”

“Wow, Mom, that’s awesome!”

“Now, what’s this high that you’ve had tucked in your mind for so long today?”

“Tyisha asked me to the Valentine’s Day dance today – just as friends.”

I’m not sure what was the more significant indicator that my Little Man is growing up – that he’s off to his first dance next month or that being asked by a girl fell under his high of the day.

Either way, I think my “thanks” for the day will be that he waited until I didn’t have food in my mouth when he told me. I certainly would have choked. And then I would have to revise my low.

I was standing by the front entrance of the school, waiting for my students to come out of gym class when he walked in. It was the two helmets he carried that made me suspicious. “I’m certain with the amount of snow we have on the ground out there that you didn’t ride a motorcycle here,” I said to him. He laughed. “Nope, brought the snowmobile.”

“You are here to pick up a student from school on a snowmobile?” I said in astonishment.

“Yeah, my little sister. It’s a great day to be in the snow!”

“Do you live very far from here?” I asked.

“Not very, just down the street around the curve. You can see our house set way back there.”

We never had so much snow, or had snow for so long, or had such a rural area where we lived in PA that I would EVER have seen someone come to pick up their student from school on a snowmobile.

But now that we’re here, I have to admit, doesn’t that sound so cool?! I mean, if I were 10 years old, I would LOVE that! Now I’m just wondering how long it will take me to save up for the remote car starter…