First Monday Challenge for February 6th

I didn't forget.  In fact, if you pay attention, you'd have seen the challenge over in the sidebar for quite some time now!  But if you're the kind of person who generally ignores the sidebar (like me most of the time), here's your February challenge:

Even if you aren't currently in a relationship, everyone's had a first love (or if you want, a first date). If you would, please recount a story of either your first love or your first date!

When you post your response on February 5th, leave me a comment and I'll put your name/link on my blog so others can come read it.

Milestone reached

I'm not sure when his obsession started.

Since my boy was as tall as the middle of my back, he started wanting to do the back to back measuring thing.  You know - when you take off your shoes and stand back to back while a third person eyeballs the tops of your heads to see who's taller.

I'm not tall.  In fact, I suspect I'm shrinking a little.  But my height is somewhere around 5'3" which was a lofty goal as far as my boy was concerned.  Every few months he'd want to see who was taller.  Last year was absolutely tantalizing for him...  he was almost as tall as me.

The measuring began to happen more often and each time he was this close, but not taller...  Until last Sunday.  After church, we were standing around having coffee and cookies and he suddenly looked at me and asked to be measured - right there in the middle of the Social Minute.  So we did - and he was taller than me.  Now I catch him eyeballing his dad's height.

I confess.  It made me feel a little weepy.  My boy is growing up and all that.  I'm glad of it and all the changes that are coming along.  His voice hasn't changed yet, but I can tell he's on the cusp of it.  All proof that my baby really isn't a baby anymore.

I'll miss him, that small and trusting child of mine.  I still see flashes of him though.  The other night, he called me into his room after he'd gone to bed.  He asked me for a goodnight hug and in the middle of the hug, he told me he loves me. 

I know he does - but it's so nice to hear.  I hope we can keep that part of my little boy while the rest keeps growing by leaps and bounds.

Double Your Fun!

I was making breakfast the other morning with eggs from Red Dragon Farm (the girls are finally producing again!!!).  Instead of my usual two eggs, I'd decided to go with just one that morning - so imagine my surprise when I cracked the egg and two yolks fell out of the shell and into my pan!

I've never seen such a thing before, but apparently it happens just often enough that there is a whole raft of supersititions about the meaning of two yolks from one egg out there.

One is that a marriage is coming up...   possibly due to pregnancy.  Another is of impending death in the family (which seems fairly common and is of Nordic roots).   Sometimes it's simply a good omen.  In the Wiccan religion, it is believed opening an egg with two yolks indicated plentifullness and good fortune: that you may expect one thing, and your expectations will be two- folded. It usually relates to fortune in finances and romance.  I could live with that one!

All in all, it was a delicious egg and that's probably all the meaning there was to it.  Except for this thought I had when I first saw them:   I bet the makers of hollandaise sauce would LOVE to find a way to make eggs have two yolks in them.  Much cheaper to make it with those kind of eggs than to buy single-yolk eggs... 

Carrying Happy Around

This morning, I was the only one going to church.  Darling Man was tired and ZBoy was still sleeping.  We decided to let him sleep since he'd recently been sick and was still getting his strength back.  He didn't sleep in too long though - I was putting on my shoes when he came thumping downstairs in a panic because he thought he was late for church.  I told him we'd already decided that he didn't have to go today.  He smiled and said thanks because he really was kind of tired...

I finished putting on my shoes and picked up my purse and my white and blue canvas bag.

So...  he said, What have you got in your Magical Bag of Goodness today?  What are you working on?

My WHAT?

He patiently told me that that's what he called that bag - Mom's Magical Bag of Goodness.  Because it always had some project in it that would be given to someone and make them happy.   You never leave home without it, he added.  It's like you carry happy around with you all the time.

Cool, huh?

**For the record, today I had several completed projects.  A baby blanket and owl for a new baby and her new older brother, and another pink owl for a little girl who just turned one this past week.**

This week could have been better... but it wasn't bad

I was sick this week.  It's actually my second time in as many weeks.  The first time I also had food poisoning, which weakend me enough to catch Darling Man's cold.  I finally started feeling human again when The Boy caught the cold.  He was home for three days with it - and me with him..  Of course I caught the cold again.  I did get to work most of the days this week.  On one of those days, I got stopped by a train.  I rather like that.  This was a long one, tagged a lot.  At first I loved that they were cattle cars passing by.  I tried to look through them to see the cows and was surprised to see that they were transporting CARS in the cattle cars!  Rather funny and a little sad.  I miss the cows.

I dug out my felt and decided to make some more owls.  I also made a little red mouse. 

I experimented with this bear a little.  I think I need to play with him some more.  He looks so worried!  Maybe I'll make a few and call them worry bears.

This morning, the cupboard was bare, so when it was time to get The Boy up, I told him we'd go out to breakfast if he'd get up and get dressed right away.  It worked.

Waiting for breakfast

Ah.  Hot chocolate with enthusiastic whipped cream

Mmmm... that's the stuff!

Not a bad way to start the morning.  Breakfast to go, quick ride to school and eating in the parking lot.

So while this week started out kind of badly, the ending was pretty nice.  Not bad for a Friday the thirteenth.



Faith and Religion... Why are so many turning away?

Last Sunday, my husband was reading to me from the newspaper...  A big article called "God, religion, athiesm 'So what?'  That's what many say."  It made me kind of sad.

I'm not a big pusher of religion.  I prefer to let my actions speak for me.  When someone asks for prayers for someone or something, I oblige and do so without embarrassment.  It's no secret that I have recently "returned to the fold" by rejoining the church I grew up in and take an active interest and role in being a parishoner there.  But I'm not out to convert the world.  I try to make a difference in my own little corner and hope that a movement of kindness and support will move out from there. 

This article, however, tells me that the rest of the world is going the other way. 

Some stats from the article:

*  44% told the 2011 Baylor University Religion Survey they spend no time seeking "eternal wisdom," and 19% said, "It's useless to search for meaning."

* 46% told a 2011 survey by Nashville-ased evangelical research agency LifeWay Research they never wonder whether they will go to heaven.

* 28% told LifeWay, "It's not a major priority in my life to find my deeper purpose," and 18% scoffed at the idea that God has a purpose or plan for everyone.

* 6.3% of Americans turned up on Pew Forum's 2007 Religious Landscape Survey as totally secular - unconnected to God or a higher power or any religious identity and willing to say religion  is not important in their lives.

How sad.  I'm not sure which of these statements bothers me the most.  I suppose the one that bothers me the least is the question of heaven.  That is something people just have to find out for themselves when the time comes because there is no way to know if there even IS a heaven.  That would be a faith thing and faith is a very individual concept.

I don't believe in religion.  It is not a thing in and of itself.  Religion is a way to express and explore faith, community, the possibilites of a higher power and a coping mechanism for dealing with the uncertainties of life and what comes after it.  What religion a person chooses is entirely up to them.  I choose to be an Episcopalian for a couple of reasons:  One, it's where I grew up and where I'm comfortable and Two, it doesn't tell me what to believe.  There is a reason it is called the "Thinking Man's Church."  While being closely related to Catholicism, it allows people to think for themselves and doesn't dictate who you should be, how you should act, or whether or not you're going to heaven, hell, purgatory, or into the body of a roach.

Perhaps the most disturbing of those statements would be the first and the last.  Both indicate a disconnect between people and God - or even with each other.  "It's useless to search for meaning."  What a scary thought!  Why be here at all if there is no meaning?  On what do these people base their concept of happiness?  How much money they have?  How much stuff they have?  The number of lovers or their ability to hold their liquor?  When things are really bad, how do they rise above it and find the will to continue?  One must think that nothing really bad has happened to these people - yet. 

That day will come though.  A child dies.  Layoffs or firings happen.  Spouses leave.  Parents need help.  A small cell grows uncontrolled within the body and threatens their very lives. 

What will they do then?  Money doesn't solve everything.  Willpower can't cure cancer.  Diving into a bottle causes even more problems.  And a lack of connection with other people or the superficial one that comes with a lack of spirituality can't be relied on when serious help is needed.

This is where spirituality (and yes, religion) comes in.  It provides a link within yourself to something bigger than yourself.  Something that comforts.  Something that heals.  Something that surrounds you with love when there is nothing else.  It builds you up and enables you to continue.  That something is God.  Or the Higher Power.  Allah.  Jehovah.  And you can see Him in action through the people who surround you as part of your spiritual connection. 

I have to wonder what that nearly half of the population thinks about or strives for or even cares about.   It isn't you and me, that's for sure.  And I suspect they don't care much about themselves either, in the long run. 

****************************************************************************
A friend of mine, who happens to also be an Episcopal priest, posted this on Facebook.  I can't disagree with it...  food for thought.

Tottie... She loves to help.

Why?  Am I in your way?

See how lovely and fluffy my tummy is?  How perfect my feet look on your monitor?

Really, this book here is most uncomfortable...

I am beautiful, no?  So worth having on your desk.

Sick and Tired of Sick and Tired

You may have noticed I haven't been around much. 

Last week, Darling Man started sneezing.  He thought it was from all the dust at work, but even once home and neti-potted he continued to sneeze.  And have bad headaches.  I let him sleep as much as possible because I know that sleep really is the only way to kick a cold.

Then I was awakened in the middle of the night by a ferocious headache.  Like someone had plunged a big knive into my head up to the hilt and was wiggling it around.  I took some ibuprophen and after about three hours got back to sleep - only to hve to get up an hour later for work and getting the Boy ready for school.  I was slow and tired at work, but I thought that was going to be it for me.

Wrong.  I started sneezing.  My head ached.  And the minor food poisoning I seemed to have had the previous week returned with avengence.  Everytime I put something in, it wouldn't hang around long.  So I'm tired from waking up in the middle of the night, undernourished from my body throwing off food shortly after it goes in and my body hurts from the pounding it's taking to the head and torso.  And yet, it doesn't feel like the flu.  And I can't completely disengage from my life to rest and make it go away.

Of all the things I miss about being a kid, not being able to just be sick might be right up there at the top of the list.   I hated being sick as a kid.  My mom was pretty strict about sick.  No TV.  Stay in bed.  Bland, liquidy food and weak tea.  If you were well enough to sit up and watch TV and eat pizza, you weren't sick enough to miss school.  If I was thinking about faking it, that was a big deterrent.  But when I really didn't feel well, it was awesome.  I could just unplug from the world and let my body rest.  I could eat chicken soup and toast and drink tea and go right back to sleep because there wasn't anywhere I had to be and nothing that I had to do.

Life isn't like that when you grow up.  There seems to always be something that needs your attention.  So for this moment, when I don't have to work, or feed people, or clean house or do laundry or pay bills or any of the other billion things I do on a daily basis, I think I'll crawl back into bed, pull the covers up over my shoulders and close my eyes for a while.