short one

I've been waiting for something interesting to happen so I could blog about it, but things have been relatively quiet around here....not something I'm complaining about, mind you, but just nothing worth writing about. My friend Lori suggested I write about Cole taking a steak knife from the dishwasher to cut his own orange, and then threatening Ashton with it, but to me, that's just ordinary every-day stuff in this house. I did have to buy a purse yesterday because someone (no one is fessing up) slammed my former purse around and managed to crack open a jar of nail polish inside it. I really wonder if they were just merely trying to help me out and give me something blog-worthy.

I'm going to get out today and enjoy the gorgeous weather - it seems it's been a long time, and the waters in my backyard lake are still receding (but not leaking into my basement). I also want to get out in order to remove my messy children from the house, since we have dinner guests and 24-7 Mess Monitoring does not seem like fun. Right now the little seem happily occupied with the new bowling set I got them, which replaced the bocce ball and plastic cups they were using before.

I hope you all have a blessed and warm and toasty day.

Happy Easter!

I bet you thought I wasn't serious about coming back! But, really, it was just my computer that went dead on me. I had to wait until my darling husband could get me going on my new one so I could resume my rambling. Funny, when he was starting up my outlook, he came across a note he wrote to himself a couple of years ago, titled "what to do if Sally screws up her email" (that's a slight paraphrase). I could be offended, but I think I'd rather be happy that my husband knows me so well. He's often said I have the reverse Midas Touch. Everything I touch seems to break into a million pieces.

This month I've cleaned up two floods from one side of my basement due to a squirting sump pump, one flood on the other side due to an unplugged sump pump and a typical Michigan April snow storm, another flood in the kids' bathroom due to a certain Cole throwing two pairs of socks in the toilet, an expensive trip to the shop for bad brakes (and a tuneup) on my van, another trip a week later for a leaky valve, a trip to the Geek Squad to blow out a mountain of dust out of my ailing computer, and a second trip when the computer completely keeled over so I could be told by the experts that it is toast, and, finally, a family visit to the computer store to buy a teensy tinsy little red computer that is now set up so I can tell you all of this. (and yes, Janet, I would love a Mac one day but what I really need is that Panasonic Titanium steel laptop that can be thrown off a building and shot with a 22 and survive...none of the tests on it included handling by Cole, though).

So now that I'm completely broke, I have plenty of time to sit around and write in blogs.

Since the title of this blog is "Happy Easter!" then perhaps I should be more..rejoiceful? And I am, actually. There are so many millions of ways all my broken everythings could have been a lot worse. We could have had no savings (or no tax return). We could have NOT backed up our hard drive two days before my computer fritzed. My husband might not have figured out how to download my external hard drive into a computer with no disk drive. I could have gotten in an accident in my car. the floods could have been worse, or I could have been bogged down with work and no time to clean up numerous floods. So, yes, I'm praising God. He's good, He really is. And watching the Passion movie again last night reminds me that these piddly events really pale when you look into the face of the One who suffered so much for us.

He is Risen! Happy Easter, everyone!

I'll leave you with a short kid story: Yesterday, I made cookies, and a half hour later, came upstairs to find all of them gone. I asked Ashton, "did you eat all those cookies??" And he said, "I only ate one! (long pause)... at a time."

Revival! Of the Blog at Least

I've been meaning to re-start my blog for the last few weeks (funny how that always happens) and I decided, why not start it when I'm sitting around with some unexpected free time - I was supposed to be at the gym - while I wait for a plumber to come help us with flood #4 (in the last two weeks). I've never thought I'd be wading in so much water in my own house..certainly not in such a short time frame! Too bad it's not summer, I could get the kids their bathing suits and pull out the beach ball and goggles and we could have an indoor beach party!!

In other news, one of the things that has gotten me interested in blogging again (besides being able to feed these into my Facebook notes) is that I've been doing some soul-searching and taking some actual steps to reduce my working time and increase quality time, with my family, with GOD, with myself. Finally, I see a line - a line that has been drawn to show me how much work is healthy and how much ISN'T, and what the Bible has to say about that. If it's my superior multi-tasking skills or my success in business that defines me, there's something wrong with that!! Obviously, multi-tasking to the point of insanity isn't healthy, and why would I want to be defined as a frantic, sloppy, irritable maniac anyway? I'd rather be defined as a child of God.

So, in order to strive toward that Balance, I'm working to add things back into my life that have been left behind too long. And the blog is a good way for me to remember just how funny life can be. So, if my house floods a million times, and I have to vacuum three times before 9 a.m. (Cole should never be allowed to carry food around), and if my computer continually goes wacky on me, it might seem sort of hilarious later on when it's in my blog.