The Sandwich

My first thought when I saw the man standing on the corner with the "homeless, every little bit helps" sign was "yeah, right. there's no way you're homeless, you're young and healthy looking." Then as I sat at the stoplight trying to look straight out the windshield and not at the man standing outside my car I realized it didn't matter. He looked sad and hopeless and whether or not he really needed help it was my place as a christian to help him if I was able. I looked around the front of the van. It has been my policy in the past to give food to people who ask for money on street corners, but never money. I didn't have any food. I had forgotten to pack N's lunch and had no snacks either. So, I figured I was in the clear. I didn't have to help him, because I didn't have any thing to give him. As I drove away to go get food for N's lunch, for him to eat on the ride from one day camp to another (long story) an idea popped into my head. Get him a sandwich too, and bring it back to him. I wasn't sure I'd have time for that and not be late for N, but I decided to play it by ear. If I forgot about it, or didn't have time I'd let myself off the hook. But, guess what? The lights were in my favor and no one else was in line at the drive through. So, I ordered the extra sandwich and headed back. I sat at the light waiting to turn onto the street he stood on and took a closer look at him while I waited for another green light. He was wearing tennis shoes, khaki shorts, a white tshirt, and a hat, like a newspaper boy would have worn. He had a water bottle and a stuffed red backpack at his feet. I began to judge him again. I think I may have been had. This guy doesn't look homeless to me. But, what do I know about homeslessness? I turned the corner and saw his face again, eyes downcast and shoulders sloped. I turned into the parking lot and turned that car around so I would be on his side of the road again. When I got back to the intersection the light was red and I pulled up next to him and rolled the window down.
"Are you hungry?" I asked.
His eyebrows raised and he nodded his head. "yeah."
I reached my hand towards him and handed him the sandwich. "Here you go."
"Thank you, I really appreciate it." He said looking in my eyes as he reached for the sandwich. His fingers touched mine as he took the package from me.
I mumbled something like "your welcome" as I pulled away and rolled up the window. I saw him fold up his sign, pick up his bag and water bottle and head away from the traffic to eat.
While I drove to pick up N, perfectly on time, I might add, I felt so spiritually full. I thought I was going to help this man, but he helped me.

Great America

Thursday morning 6:30, the alarm goes off. Dave and I contemplate our plans for the day while listening to the rain outside. The kids are beyond excited about a trip to Great America and we hate to disappoint them, but it doesn't look like a good idea. A couple of them are awake and so we ask them their opinions. How about we wait a day? We discuss pros and cons. While it is not raining in Gurnee yet, there is a 60% it will and a 40% chance for Friday. By the time we are done talking and it is time for a vote all the kids are awake and they unanimously vote to go for it. I am less than enthused. But, it is their trip, and they are okay with being wet and possibly not getting as much time there, they just don't want to wait anymore after having to wait for 8 months for this promised trip. So, we get ready and head out. Before we leave the driveway Dave hops out to grab some sunglasses and asks if I want some. I look at the grey sky and shake my head. I'm not going to need them, grumble grumble. On the way it pours for awhile and then we seem to get ahead of it. I obsessively check my phone for weather.com updates. We stop for a big breakfast in Wauconda and run into Dave's aunt and cousin. Weird. A happy coincidence and they sit with us and chat while we order and eat. While we are there it pours rain. Apparently the rain has caught up with us. Blech. By the time we leave it has stopped and the sky is brightening. We cross our fingers and get back in the van for the last 25 minutes of the ride. I start organizing my stuff, pulling money out of my purse and into my pockets and find a pair of sunglasses. "I better put these on, I'm gonna need them later". Dave wants to know where my optimism comes from. I have no idea. We get close enough to see the coasters and get a couple more drips on the windshield. Please, no more rain. Please. I don't want to be a cranky wet momma. We park in the cheap parking and walk the distance to the park gates. The kids are more bouncing than walking. My socks are wet before we get through the gate from all the puddles. But, do you know what? It didn't rain one more drop the rest of the day. We had a cloudy sky for the first hour or two and then the sun came out and I did need those sunglasses after all. There was time for all the rides and junk food and we all had a blast. We just won't talk about the tornado warning that occurred as we were waiting for the light parade to start which caused them to close the park early and kick us out and how it rained so hard on the way home that we were going 20 on the highway.

Not Enough Time

This is a project I made after my Walk to Emmaus in August of 2008. I'm pretty sure I never posted it. It seems appropriate for this post because keeping priorities in line was a big part of what I learned that weekend.

I don't suppose there's any way to slow time down, is there? I need a couple more hours in each day. I can't ever seem to get caught up. I'm talking about everyday things caught up. If the house is in order, the bills need paid. If my desk is organized with bills paid, and no paperwork to fill out then I've forgotten to take on of the kids somewhere. It seems impossible to get everything right all the time. Something has to suffer. And I'm not really complaining, my problems are all blessings. we have a house to clean, money to pay our bills and children to shuttle. When there are lots of people who don't have some or all of those. It's just that the perfectionist in me wants to get it all right. So, I just pray that I'm getting the right stuff done when it needs to be done.

More Creatively Yours Layouts

Right now I am very impressed with myself for figuring out how to add the sketch to my layout easily. :) This sketch is the current sketch over at Creatively Yours. The following layout and card are what I made using it.




I took this photo of J last summer. I was practicing in manual mode with my camera and I was pretty happy with the result. The image is SOTC, so I'm sure if I had photoshop I could adjust it and like it even more. It's kinda funny though, because J is almost never that serious. The blue ruffle here and on the following card is crepe paper streamer, and the brown ruffle is cup cake wrappers with a basket weave pattern. I'm really liking the Sassafrass Lass papers lately.





The card I whipped up for a 1st birthday party we attended. I rarely use stamps even though I have a binder full. The papers are Bazzill cardstock and scraps from my scrap folder.


There is a design team call going on over at Creatively Yours, go check it out!

First

This layout is based on a Creatively Yours sketch by Monica Martinson. The papers are designed by Gudrun and were given to me for a layout when I was a member of the Scrapping Across the Universe team. She gave us so many papers that I still have leftovers. And they are great patterns. For this sktech I simplified it quite a bit, the doily i used was white until I sprayed it with glimmer mist. The base of the butterfly is Grungeboard. There is a whole lot more to say to E about this layout. She mentioned the other day that when our adoption is final I won't be able to call her my best girl anymore. She's right, but she'll always be my first, the one who taught me how to be a mom and love unconditionally.

a little scrappin'

I've been taking a little time to scrapbook lately between running kids around and settling in the new house. I wonder how long it will be the "new house"?

This is the layout I did for my first assignment this month for Creatively Yours. I rotated the sketch and changed things just a bit. That's the great part about sketches, they're a starting off point, a way to jumpstart your creativity. Head on over to Creatively Yours to check out the sketch and see the other designers layouts.

. . . and a happy new year!

I set a pile of christmas cards aside planning to write a lovely christmas letter about our year. The pile were people we don't see and therefore probably didn't know how crazy our year had been. Unfortunately the pile was put aside and forgotten. After all I did mail a pile of cards and therefore crossed it off my mental to do list. I had already put stamps on them so there was no way i was going to NOT mail them and waste the stamp, not to mention the cost of the custom made cards with my kiddos pictures on them. So, I took the advice of a facebook friend and added "... and a happy new year" to them and tossed them in the mail without the letter. At least I sent them, right?

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving! There are so many things to be thankful for, I am blessed beyond measure. So very grateful that the home sale and move are complete and we are getting settled in our new home. I am very much looking forward to this Christmas season and all the joy it brings. We are traveling to my Aunt's home today for our big meal with about 20 family members. She has said this is her last year hosting, maybe we will take over hosting next year, our house is big enough to hold everyone now!

I'll leave with a photo of my craft room. It's an in process photo, I'll have a completed one after I've set it up. It's a good photo for today, after all, I am very thankful to have a room of my own again!

Hello Blogosphere!!

Is blogospere a word? I guess not, but I like it. It has been so long since i've posted an entry that I wasn't sure I could remember my password. Good thing I always use the same one! But, if a bad guy is reading this pretend I didn't just say that. What I meant was I have totally different passwords for all of my important internet memberships. And I do really have a special password for my internet banking that's totally random, and that's the only sensitive one really. So, I'm not worried about it. If someone's gonna hack my blog, have at it, it could be interesting!

This year has definitely been a year of changes. We have been making big decisions that led to big hugely time consuming activities. We are at the very beginning of our adoption journey to find our Caroline. That takes lots of money so we decided to sell our busting at the seams home for a larger model. We found a house we love for a great price that left us with some equity money to get started on the adoption. Only problem was we didn't sell our first house in time for the closing on the second, so we had to get a bridge loan. Let me tell you, it is highly stressful taking care of 2 houses and planning 4 bday parties and 4 halloween costumes in there too. oct was almost the end of me. But, most thankfully the first house has sold and we close next wednesday the 25th. hurrah!! We moved into the second house (at least the most important stuff) last weekend and I'm surrounded by piles of boxes. I haven't been able to keep up with the laundry so this past monday, my birthday, i took all the dirty clothes to the laundrymat and did the equivalent of 10 loads. It took forever to fold but at least it was done! In the midst of all this I joined a design team from a great sketch blog, called creatively yours. It's a wonderfully creative team, with a couple good friends on team and my good friend Ali leading us. I'm very much looking forward to joining in!

That's all for now, as things calm down I'll definitely be around more often. I'll leave you with a photo of my kids on halloween.

all in a days work

this post is from another blog that we are turning into our adoption blog, it was originally posted sept 25, 2008. i'm deleting in from over there and didn't want to loose it alltogether.



today I:
took care of one sickie
got 2 littles ready for the day
clipped 20 fingernails
unloaded the dishwasher
loaded the dishwasher
cut and added a cardboard divider into the dog food bin - 2 kinds of food
vacuumed the first floor
put 1 little down for a nap
steamed cleaned the basement carpet
caught a cricket to feed to ds's praying mantis
baked a batch of cookies
ran to the store for a couple things with 3 kids in tow
picked up ds from school
took dd to ballet
cooked a frozen pizza for dinner
took the puppy outside for countless potty breaks
cleaned up several potty "accidents" from puppy anyway
walked/ran a mile on the treadmill
hosted small group at our house

and very few of these things were on my actual list. the list that keeps growing. there are always calls to make and cleaning to get done. but, ds might actually remember that his momma took a couple minutes to go outside and catch him a cricket. i doubt he'll care if i ever get around to making an appointment to get my hair cut and colored. a girl's gotta have priorities.

scrapping across the universe #11

is that right? i think so, #11. the one about BFFs. only i wanted to scrap this pic of e and well, she's not even friends with this girl anymore! at the time they were super close though, so it fits, right? anyway the background paper already had the doodling on it and it worked out so well, easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Hallelujah!

the robins are back! it's official, spring is just around the corner!!
remind me i like robins when they start singing at dawn, okay?

challenge #9 is up at SATU

challenge #9 is supposed to take you back to high school. a high school crush, or who were you in high school. i was a dorky kid that always desperately wanted to be a cool kid. and i still do! i am now a dorky momma who wants to be the cool mom! some things never change! come play at scrapping across the universe!

adventures in parenting

i just wrote out a long post about the stomach bug we've got going through our house and lots of details that were totally to much information.

let's just say that nl got sick in the living room today. it took us by surprise, we thought he was past that part of the sickness. dave tried to get him out of the room and covered nl's mouth as he ran. i got back with a pot before they made it out of the room. but, the mess was huge. the bad news is it took both dave and I 2 1/2 hours to completely clean up. the good news is that dave, nl and joe (the dog) had baths and the area rug and hard wood floors, and coffee table were all cleaned. it even got into the valentine goodie bags that were sitting in bags on the floor. it's one of those stories that we'll laugh about when nl has kids of his own, but right now i can't laugh because i keep thinking i smell more of it!

we're praying e and j don't get it, but at least if they do, they're really good about hitting the bucket. ;)

well, well, well

ok, so i remember i have a blog it's just that life got in the way again. december kicked my butt. having a late thanksgiving plus losing a week to the Nutcracker made the time left to prepare for christmas much too short. i've spent the last month recovering! well, recovering and doing the reorganizing of the house that comes from having to incorporate the contents of a whole toy store. the kids get so many gifts it's really quite ridiculous. i'm still in the process of moving all of the toys we had stored in the shelves in the dining room to the boys room upstairs. they're all old enough to go upstairs to play and bring down a few things to play with if they want to be downstairs. i need some type of storage cabinet/bench for games in the living room. they have a ton of games they don't play with because they're out of sight. i'd rather have the games down here and they can play with them at the table and not lose as may pieces.

prompt #7 is up at scrapping across the universe! it's all about scrapping a family photo! check it out!