FunnyBlog

Dog Gone It

I’m 30 weeks pregnant.

Spring has brought on time constraints with a vengence.

The dirt in my house is so much more evident when the sun is shining.
It’s soccer season….enough said.
The children and I have a combined total of
5 doctor appointments in the next two weeks alone.
I’ve got 20 school commitments over the next month.
You know….field trips, programs, PTSO responsibilites, and helping teachers.
That’s not even considering the regular homework, projects, and catching up on AR points.
Tonight I spent an hour in the yard just prepping it to be mowed.
It’s a jungle out there.
I know I am blessed.
But really I am tired.
Life is tiring.
I just want to nap….like forever.
So, I saw this dog.
And he reminded me to roll my windows down.
And breathe some fresh air.
It’s spring.
And dog gone it, I need some fresh air.

My Kind of Mom

I got an e-mail forward from my friend Trisha this morning.
I felt it really worth sharing.


There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena.

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ‘ ulterior motive ‘ … She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews, (being German.)

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids.) She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi ‘ s broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parents tha t may have survived it and reunited the family. Most of course had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize … She was not selected.

* Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

Forgetting the Roadkill

Just a few weeks ago as part of our Spring Break activities, we went, as a family, to one of our favorite places, Bays Mountain Park. As we searched out our favorite animals, we stumbled upon an elderly naturalist volunteer as she gently balanced a black vulture upon her forearm. It was the most intriguing fowl. It was big. It was black. It was a vulture. It eats roadkill. It is not the kind of bird that is beloved or even admired. Yet, I was fascinated; for some reason I saw beauty. I saw the majesty of an eagle in this bird. I wanted to hear all about it.

As the natulralist spoke of the vulture with such endearing admiration, it got me thinking about the conversation I had just had with my therapist. He told me that as I understood myself better I would change my outlook of myself. I would learn to love myself and stop my destructive inner conversation. Well, gee, if this bird could be loved by me, why in the world could I not love me? I thought, “I don’t appreciate myself, and I don’t even eat roadkill!”

As I looked at this vulture, I knew my therapist was right. It wasn’t easy to realize that deep down I don’t have enough self regard, but it was true, and I could work to change it. But, how?

This has been the theme in my life lately. How does one change their thought patterns? How do you change the future without changing the past? How do you love a big black bird when all he does is eat roadkill?

I guess the secret lies in the roadkill. The vulture has a useless reputation because he eats roadkill. In fact when people think of vultures, they rarely think of anything besides one sitting up on a wire waiting for its next dead feast. They don’t think that a vulture is made so unique and strong that it can withstand whatever disease it may eat. Everything about a vulture seems to be designed to assist in his one big job….cleaning up the dead in nature. A vulture is uniquely useful, not useless.

This vulture held powerful wisdom for me. What if I quit thinking about my own roadkill and started thinking about my personal majesty? What if I start realizing that God prepared me very specifically? Just as he had designed the vulture, he had designed me. He may not have given me the most majestically known shell, but he designed me to be useful and he designed me to survive. He masterminded me uniquely to not just deal with life, but to soar above the roadkill.

Well, if I start to see those good qualities, those blessings, those unique abilities, then maybe the roadkill could be diminished, or at the least, shrunk back down to its view from the sky. The vulture in me could be admired and endeared. I wouldn’t have to change from a vulture to an eagle. I could just be amazing because I was a vulture. And if no one else saw me for who I was…..my naturalist would. My maker designed me. And when he loves me, and appreciates me, and is amazed when I just perform up to design, how could I not love me?

Time and Perspective

My last post was about Duane working at the same place for 40 years.

Now I just read a news story about a time frame of 2 years. It was extremely disturbing. I was going to post this tomorrow, but it is so disturbing, I thought it would make for a good April’s Fools Day….EXCEPT it’s NOT a joke!

Two mothers in Russia, were forced by the courts to re-swap their 2 year old sons. They had been sent home with the wrong mothers at birth.

“Both sons are having a hard time adjusting to their new homes”, are the words at the end of the report.

Yeah, duh?

This story reminds me of the mothers in the Bible who came to King Solomon with one dead child. You know the “real mother”. The one who said to let the other “selfish lady” keep the child because she couldn’t bare for Solomon to cut it in half.

I like to think I would be the mom who would give the other lady her son back, and tell her to keep mine too. It would break my heart to take a child away from the only mother he has ever known. And then I would pray like heck that some sane judge out there would be as wise as Solomon and let me keep the child that I thought was mine.

Can you imagine giving a child up after two years? I don’t care what the DNA tests say. Giving mine up (the one that looked like me or not) would be seriously life altering….like permanent residence in a mental institution altering.

At the top….that’s Bella at not quite two. Man she was so cute!!!!

Thank goodness no one mixed her up at the hospital. If she didn’t look so much like me, I would almost worry now.

Two minutes is all it takes to change a mother’s perspective….well, I guess not all mothers’ perspectives.

Is it just me or is the mom that pursued her mixed up child crazy????

40 years
I promised Faye that I would post this last Fall, but I only started.
Duane celebrated his 40th year working for Eastman.
They threw him a little reception.
It was lovely. And the girls loved missing school.
They made us all feel like heroes for supporting the company for so long.
Really they have been the ones supporting us.
Our two liters of pop can only do the company so much good, especially considering that we don’t use their cigarette filters and the Kodak 35 mm film went out of style a long time ago.
Thank you to Eastman and thanks to Duane for supporting us in living our dream.
Even if ours is starting out a little too late to last 40 years.
(I don’t know maybe LG could work until he’s 73!!!!)
As the inevitable layoffs are lurking, we will hope for the best.
40 years…..Man, I don’t even think I will make it to any 40 year anniversary.
Being only 35, I can’t even imagine the length of 40 years.
40 years of engineering is something to be proud of.
And we are proud of Duane, but mostly because he is a wonderful man.
Not to mention the best dad and granddad.
Here’s to 40 more….well, maybe not 40.

A cat and a crow

A few years ago, I looked out the window to see about 50 crows hanging out in my backyard. We usually have a few crows, but 50 at once seemed kind of eerie. Eerie is a little understated, it was really a flashback into like viewing the movie Birds as a child.

Upon further observation, the 49 crows were watching over one that was hobbling back and forth along our back fence. After pulling on my big girl panties and convincing myself that the 49 would not attack me and eat me alive, I went out to see what was going on. As if on que at my arrival all 49 crows quickly flew away, abandoning the one. It was just me, the girls, and the crow. The crow could obviously not fly.

The crow tried to hobble away, but was looking rather pathetic. It couldn’t find an escape past our fence….not as smart as the neighborhood rabbits who have several holes or the government housing adolescents who hop right over and through instead of walking around. Kitty Bear had done her damage and with a hubby on permanent law school hiatus, the solution was up to me. Do you have any idea how big and scary crows are when they are hobbling along your fence line and hissing at you?

I went inside and secured a box and a quilt. And if you could have all seen me, scared out of my mind, repeatedly throwing this quilt and missing, you would have been embarrassed for me. I think my girls were a little disappointed in their supermommy’s skills. I finally cotton-lassoed that big black sucker in and then had to figure out how to get the bird filled quilt into the box. I went with the option of putting the box right over the quilt and using as much of the quilt to secure the bird in the box.

The real trick was removing the quilt to securely close the box without removing the bird too. Ahhhhhhh! My writing cannot do justice for the shaking in my bones.

We got in the car and listened to the crow shifting around in the box and making hissing noises. Trust me when I say this crow was not in its right mind. There was no cawing to be found anywhere in Knox County. The 49 other crows flew far far away and our boxed guy could ONLY hiss. I found new meaning to the phrase “pray without ceasing” and counted myself very blessed when we got to the UT Veterinary clinic without any incidence.

Two days later, I received the dreaded call. Despite the clinic’s assurance that they would do everything they could, they couldn’t save that darned crow. The emotional image of a release back to my backyard of freedom almost overtook my soul. What would happen to the other 49 crows who kept coming back to find their friend?

I guess they will have to go do some good elsewhere. Maybe one could watch the following video and take some cat nurturing lessons. I think that Kitty Bear is just a lost little kitten who couldn’t find enough love from that crow. I know she has the heart to make friends.

And now the video that has been sitting in my drafts for the past year.

You all know how I love animals. Well, at least Valerie knows…she always forwards me everything she gets about animals. If you have a few free minutes, watch this video of a crow who mothered a cat. It seriously brought tears to my eyes…I am just kind of funny that way!

Writing on the Walls

Marla, my friend, was frustrated that her well-behaved 3 year old had taken a red dry erase marker and colored all over the place. “Red” she mused. “Why did it have to be red?” all over his arms, his toys, and most frustrating the newly painted walls. My mind traveled back; back to California in 1995.

My parents were forced to sell my childhood home. Dad had been out of a job for a long time, and we had to go, so we were packing. I was now an adult, helping out mom and dad. Mom was bawling. I said to mom, “It’s just a house mom. It’s not going to be our home anymore. It’ll be o.k. We’ll make a new home.” Those words have haunted me repeatedly for the past 14 years. My understanding was so limited.

Mom and I stepped into the now converted living room. A wall had been knocked out of my childhood bedroom. We started removing furniture and there it was! We found the memory right behind the couch. It was crayon. It was on the wall. It was the coloring contest that mom could never bring herself to paint over. My brother and sister and I had been quiet in my bedroom. Mom knew we were up to no good. She came in to find us beaming with pride. We weren’t afraid of mom; we wanted her to judge whose picture was the best. She proclaimed Adam’s “Superman” the most creative, but immediately complimented his younger sisters on their handiwork also.

And so the story goes. Mom knew how to love kids. She would never break a tender heart over some crayon. A wall was never worth it.

I now have three little ones. Mom’s wisdom is always with me. I am not as patient as her, but I want to be. I try and keep my walls clean because I want to have a nice home. But, honestly, when all is said and done, I want my home to be a place where I raised character, not wall perfection.

It’s my dream. I want to build a home where there is a room just for writing on the walls. This home would be a place where kids would feel loved. It doesn’t need to be fancy. It just needs to be “home”. I want to carry on my mom’s legacy. I want to be a mother who creates a fantasy world for each tenderhearted child. What a dream.

Dad’s Money
A few weeks back Bella accompanied me to the bank. It was a wondrous experience for her as she had never been to Daddy’s work bank before.
We stood in the line for the teller.
Bella asked me about my little deposit bag. I explained to her that this was daddy’s bank for work
and that I had to give the bank the money that dad had earned.
She asked me how much money daddy had in the bank. I told her that it wasn’t very much, but that this deposit would give him more money.
She exclaimed to me and the three people behind us in line:
“Maybe we should go to daddy’s work and get his money.
Daddy has a lot of money at work.”
I was perplexed.
I then rememebered that we have been trying to teach Bella about coins. Daddy had given her free reign in his change drawer a few days before. She loved counting all those pennies. I guess I had better go and rescue the change from the office, now that you all know where mu hugely successful lawyer keeps his big bucks.