Tag Archives: friends

A day with Dad

Today started out pretty early for me. I agreed to meet Dad in East Nashville this morning at 8:15. That’s actually REALLY early for me to be out and about, but it was ok. After we finished up some business we went back to his house to do some cleaning since Aunt Penny was on her way to visit. We started cleaning, but decided we’d eat first and clean later. So off to lunch we go. Penny made it in shortly after we got back from lunch. After a little bit of catching up it was time to get to the racquetball court. And here’s where things got really good.

I don’t think I did too badly, especially considering how long it had been since I’ve “played”. For the most part we just hit the ball around, but with about 10 minutes left in the hour Dad decided we should play a short game. Penny and I against Dad. She and I actually won! It was great. Yes I know, two of us against one of him, but I’ll take it!  Most of the time I didn’t have a clue what was going on. Thankfully they kept score. I managed a few points, but they usually had to tell me when I made one. We laughed more than anything and I honestly can’t wait to get back on the court. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I started hitting the ball again.

After racquetball I raced home to get ready to go to church. Which was great, good lesson, good music, and great friends. Then back to our house for pizza, dirt cake, and more fun. I’m pretty exhausted, but enjoyed every minute to today!! Thanks Penny for making the drive, thanks Zale for taking care of the kids most of the day while I played,  and thanks Dad for lunch, dinner, and just a great day! Love you all!!!!

Oh yea, one thing I should probably mention, this morning Dad and I met up with a friend of Leeanna’s (Dad’s girlfriend’s daughter). I guess she didn’t hear when Dad introduced me as his daughter, so a minute later she asked if I was Leeanna’s Mom. This is the 2nd time that’s happened. Leeanna is 22 or 23, I’m 35. As a teenager I thought it was cool when someone thought I was older than I really was. Not so much anymore! I think she also assumed Dad and I were married instead of Father / Daughter. We get that a lot too. But I’m pretty sure I could comfortably go the rest of my life without anyone else thinking I’m old enough to be Leeanna’s Mom! :-) Big sister, sure. Mom, I’d rather not.

Kids say the darndest things….

Today was such a pretty day so Zale and I decided to take the girls to the park. But the park was packed (they don’t do really well in that kind of crowd) so we ended up at the McDonald’s play place. Which was almost empty, because everyone was at the park. Reagan was sleepy and a bit cranky and Hannah wasn’t really playing much anyway. So we decided to pack it up and head home.

When I told Reagan it was time to go she immediately voiced her displeasure in a not so quiet manner. She was stringing some words together (with a scowl on her face), but I couldn’t quite make them out. We finally convinced the girls to go home and ride their bikes. I was still trying to figure out what Reagan was trying to say when we got in the car. As often happens, I asked Hannah if she knew what Reagan was saying  and of course she knew. Hannah said, “She’s saying that you’re ruining her life.” I couldn’t believe that was coming from my 2 1/2 year old’s mouth, but I asked Reagan if that was what she was saying and she confirmed it was.

So then I ask Hannah where in the world she learned to say that, and Hannah replied that it was from a new Barbie movie that my Mom and step-father bought them this weekend. My first thought was to burn the movies, but then I decided to reason with her instead. Why? I don’t know, I guess because for a brief moment I forgot that you really can’t reason with a 2 year old. She finally did stop saying it, but I’m quite sure we’ll hear it again sometime! I was just hoping it would be at least another 10 years!

Tonight it was Hannah’s turn. While they were taking their baths Hannah asked Reagan if she wanted to get married. I explained that sisters couldn’t get married, and that they weren’t allowed to get married for at least 20 years. Of course Hannah said they were just pretending. I went on to tell her that I hope she finds someone as wonderful as her Daddy to marry, but that she needed to marry whoever God put in her life. She said, ” so not Ethan?” (Ethan is her 5 year old friend from church and our families are very close). I told her that if Ethan was who God wanted her to marry then it would be fine with me….just not for another 20 years or so!

You just never know where the day is going to take you…I for one didn’t expect to be having those conversations with my 2 and 4 year old! Can’t wait to see/hear what they’re going to do and say tomorrow!!!

dieting…..

I haven’t talked about my weight loss progress in quite awhile. Probably because there hasn’t been more loss to talk about. I haven’t done the weight watchers thing in quite a while, and I have struggled to maintain the 40 pound loss from last year. In fact, I’ve struggled to not gain back more than 10. Some months are better than others.

So when one of my friends from church suggested a new life group for woman who wanted to lose weight and get healthy, I was all for it. We didn’t really know what program we would go by, or if it would just be a support group to help keep each other on track, but I didn’t care. I realized a long time ago, that if I didn’t get to the source of my overeating, it wasn’t going to matter what diet I used, the weight was always going to come back.

Through God’s direction we’re doing the Weigh Down diet. I have to admit, the woman who started this program can be a bit over the top, and I would love to take her to my hair stylist. But the principles are sound and life changing. The bottom line is turning to God instead of turning to food. What a novel concept. We think to turn to Him for finances, our health, many other things, but our weight, not so much unless you’re like me and try to bargain with Him to magically make it disappear.

Here’s the jist of how it works. You don’t eat until your stomach growls. Weird concept, I know, especially since I’ve been taught for years not to let myself get too hungry so I won’t go over board. But doesn’t it really make more sense to not eat if you’re not really hungry?! To keep from overeating, pray over your food, take small bites, put your fork down in between bites and take sips of your drink. Eat slowly and stop when you start to feel full. The best part, is that you literally eat whatever you want. Whatever your body tell you it wants. No more diet food!!!!

As you learn the difference between real physical hunger, and head hunger (or thinking you’re hungry when you’re really not, but just want to eat), you’ll eat less, give your body time to use what you have eaten, and begin to lose weight. The even better benefit is getting closer to God and getting emotionally healthy as well as physically healthy.

The lady leading our group has lost over 70 pounds and other women in our group have lost 5 to 10 pounds since we started a few weeks ago. Unfortunately for me, I lost a couple of pounds the first week, then went back to doing my own thing for the next couple of weeks, so I’m not sure what my true weight loss is yet. But I do know this, I haven’t gained any and have been eating all kinds of yummy food. When I’m hungry! Real ice cream, Mexican food, fast food, etc. But in stopping when I’m full and only eating when I’m truly hungry, I know I’m eating less and less often.

Not to knock Weight Watchers or any other program out there that has worked for many. But it is so freeing to not have to buy diet food anymore, to not have to count points or keep a food journal, or work out because I want to add points back to my food journal because I want to eat more that day. I am learning to keep a prayer journal, because denying yourself really isn’t easy. To turn to God instead of turning to food is quite a challenge when I’ve been turning to food for so many years. But for food to not be the center of my day anymore, is a wonderful change. God Bless!

Baptized

Yesterday my Dad called and invited us to have dinner with him and my Uncle Allen, to celebrate Allen’s birthday. We were able to make it a surprise and enjoyed a nice meal together. Our good friends had agreed to watch the girls and Anthony was at Switch, our church’s youth program. It was unusual for us to be out having dinner on a weeknight, especially without the kids.

After we got home and were getting the girls settled in for bed, Anthony came in. I asked how Switch was and he said “good”, a typical teen response to a question from a parent. He went to his room and I went to the kitchen to get a SMALL bowl of frozen yogart. Heavenly Hash, my favorite. I got a bowl, spoon, and the yogart from the freezer. About that time I notice that Zale has logged on to FaceBook and I see a posting that 11 kids were baptized during Switch. In that instant I had a flash back of Anthony coming in and his hair wasn’t straightened like it had been when he left for Switch. So I drop everything, run to his room, knock as I’m opening his door and breathlessly say, “Did you get baptized tonight?!?!?!?” He looked up at me with this almost embarrassed grin and said, “yea”, as if it’s no big deal. I tackle him with a hug and screech, “Why didn’t you tell me???!!!! We would have been there!!!!!” Zale was behind me, congratulated him and said, “Just make sure you tell her before you get married”.

I get it, of course, if I had been there I would have been crying my eyes out and probably wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from completely embarrassing him in front of his friends. And I understand it’s a personal decision that he made between him and God. I’m grateful for all of it, and it’s certainly an answer to prayer, but still a bit teary eyed that I wasn’t there to see it happen.

we’re talking about what?

Last Tuesday night I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours with some great ladies from church. There were six of us from our life group who got together to do a little pot luck dinner and enjoy each others company. I really needed it too. For the last few weeks I’ve felt a bit out of it and disconnected from people and life in general. It was good to have some girl time and truly laugh.

Now normally when we get together as a lifegroup we’re discussing a book, talking about our walks with God and life experiences. But this night was a bit different. Normally when you get a group of women together (at least it’s been my experience), the subject of sex always come up. But in this group with women who all have children, we end up talking about poop. Did you know there’s even a website dedicated to poop? And farts? I mean I guess there are websites that will tell you everything you need to know about anything, but I hadn’t ever met anyone before who had googled poop and fart. Especially a woman! I laughed so hard that I cried and tucked the web site information into the back of my brain because I figured Anthony (my 16 year old son) would get a kick out of it. As it turns out, he already knew about them. And I’m really not surprised.

Tastefully Simple

Sunday, August 30th at 5:00 I’m hosting a Tastefully Simple party for my good friend Sandi Hoke. I was able to try some of the food at our LifeGroup on Tuesday night, and I have to say it was VERY good! When I got the message from Sandi about hosting a party I stopped reading when it said something about the host getting free food, and immediately sent her a reply that said sign me up!

Tuesday I was able to sample the beer bread and a couple of the dips. I’m really looking forward to having it all again! In fact, she’s already brought me the food to prepare for the party..it’s just sitting on my kitchen counter and I have to say, it’s VERY hard to leave it there and not make some of it early!! :)

Please feel free to look over the  web site and see if there’s anything you’d like to order. If there is, please let me know so Sandi can get credit for it. (You don’t have to be in TN or even at the party to order something, it will be shipped directly to you.)

This will make the third party at our house during the month of August. I think I’m going to be done for awhile and maybe relax a bit before hosting something else….oops, Labor Day is coming up isn’t it? That means Aunt Jean will be in town and maybe cousin Kenneth…ok, so after that I’m taking a break!

birthday surprise

Friday was my Dad’s birthday. Dad can be pretty challenging to shop for. But this year, I had an opportunity to acquire something for him that meant more than anything I could go buy off the shelf.

I’ve talked about Aunt Jean before, Dad and Aunt Jean celebrated their first birthday together. Their Dads were very good friends so the families spent quite a bit of time together. Fast forward to their teen years and Jean’s house ended up being Dad’s home away from home. In almost all the stories I’ve heard of Dad being at Aunt Jean’s house, they included a glider that was on Aunt Jean’s porch. Whether it was Miss Vivian (Aunt Jean’s Mom) sitting on the glider reading, or the hours that Dad and Aunt Jean spent talking while sitting on the glider, it’s almost always brought up. In fact, I just realized that I blogged on this glider almost a year ago.

We found out last September that the glider was available and had been offered to Dad. My intent was to arrange to pick it up for Dad before Christmas, but I just wasn’t able to make it happen. So for Dad’s birthday this year, and before Jean visited again, I was determined to have it ready for Dad’s birthday. So last weekend I made a couple of phone calls and made arrangements to get it. This was a huge group effort and one that I took so much joy in coordinating. I was too excited to not say anything, so once I knew we were going to have it, I just had to call Dad and let him know I was working on a Big Surprise for him. He is the master of being sneaky, so it was really nice to be on this side of it and be the one being sneaky for a change. I actually tortured Dad just a few minutes every day telling him I had been able to be sneaky that day. It made for a really fun week!

Anyway, last Saturday I sent Zale (my wonderful husband), Anthony (my awesome 16 year old son), and Jake (Anthony’s best friend) on a mission to pick up the glider. Zale then spent every evening cleaning and repainting the glider to get it restored. And then there was the issue of cushions. So I made more phone calls and sent out a group e mail and had several friends who were excited to go in together to pay for the cushions. On Wednesday night I picked them up at WalMart and they worked perfectly. On Friday, the afternoon of Dad’s party, Zale and I are talking on the phone and we both had the thought of how old this glider really is. And how it’s only held up by chains and hooks, that were rusted and probably just as old as the frame. What if, after all this work, it breaks the first time someone sits on it. Not quite the surprise I had in mind. So Zale heads to the local Ace Hardware store and picks up new chains and hooks. Just a few hours before Dad’s birthday dinner we’re putting it all together in our living room. We positioned it in front of the fireplace so it would be the first thing Dad saw when he walked in the room. I couldn’t have asked for a better response when Dad realized it was THE GLIDER.

all smiles

all smiles

THE glider

THE glider

Dad and Oz on the glider, all that's missing is Aunt Jean!

Dad and Oz on the glider, all that's missing is Aunt Jean!

I think the only thing that could have made this a better surprise for Dad is if Aunt Jean could have been sitting on The glider when Dad walked in. And that almost happened, but as it turns out Aunt Jean will be here for a visit during Labor Day weekend. She can stay longer that way, which is more important.

So Happy Birthday Dad! I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to top this one, but I look forward to many more stories and memories as a result of having THE glider at your house. (I promise to get it there before Jean gets here!) Love you Everyday!

Griffin’s 2nd night

I know we’re not supposed to wish our time away, but I can honestly say I’m looking forward to Griffin gaining another 40 pounds and getting lazy! Last night we had our neighbors over for a few hours and he was out of control. That was after me taking him for a walk, playing fetch and tug of war with him. I was hoping to wear him out so he would sleep the whole time they were here. Didn’t happen. Thankfully we have very understanding neighbors!

We went to bed shortly after they went home and Griffin was still having trouble understanding that he can’t share the recliner with me. But he relented and got on the couch. At some point during the night I realized that instead of being reclined in the recliner, I was sitting up in the recliner and there was about 40 extra pounds on my lap. So I shove him off, get comfortable again, and go back to sleep.

Not sure how much later, I woke up again, and realized that Griffin is on the recliner with me, but this time he’s at the crook of my knees. I have one sturdy recliner! (Thank you Dad!) At this point I’m too tired to care (even though I know full well I will regret it later) and just go back to sleep with him in the recliner with me. At least this time he’s sleeping like a dog should, and not expecting me to spoon him!

Blessed beyond measure!

Yesterday was travel day for Zale and I as we began our adventure to Maui.  We had a short layover in Dallas and were able to get an early lunch with one of Zale’s (and I consider him mine too) best friends. I had been worried that we’d be so close to him, but not have time to see him. Our layover was only about an hour and a half and I knew we’d have to go back through security before we could get to the gate and have always been a bit paranoid when flying that I’ll miss a flight. Of course I shouldn’t have been worried at all, God was well in control of the situation.

God had our whole day planned out for us and everything went so smoothly. Our friend was able to pick us up on the curb, and hop over to a restaurant right beside the airport, we had a wonderful half hour or so to catch up and reconnect. We could easily spend hours with our friend but were blessed with what God provided! We were back through security and at the gate with plenty of time to spare before they started boarding us.

In that very short amount of time before we boarded God showed up again, not once, but twice. I got on the plane feeling almost giddy over the obivious hand God has over us yesterday. While we were waiting to board I saw two young military personal waiting to board our plane. I was honored to be able to tell them how much we appreciated their service to our country. They tried to shake it off as if it were no big deal and that it was just a job, but I know that’s not the case and was able to tell them so! I don’t know anything about where they were going or what their jobs are in the military, but I pray God will keep them safe and return them home to their families!

The next cool thing that happened was we were able to meet another attorney that’s a part of this conference that Zale met on Facebook. And it turns out they were sitting right behind us on the plane. Zale had been hoping to get a chance to chance to meet him before the conference started, and God showed up and took care of that too! I was able to meet his wife and felt completely comfortable with both of them. That’s actually not an easy thing for me, so I felt very blessed to at least have two familiar faces to look for while we’re here and maybe even a new friend to spend some time with while our husbands are in class.

Another blessing as part of our travel day happened in the shuttle from the airport to the hotel. It was quite a long ride and we got to meet a really sweet (lady) attorney from Florida. To be honest I was a bit concerned about fitting in here and not embarassing Zale. I feel a bit out of my element being surrounded by all these highly educated people throwing legal terms around that I can’t even pronouce, much less understand. But meeting this lady on the shuttle and sharing some stories and finding some common ground really helped put me at ease.

It was a wonderful day, and I am so blessed and grateful to be on this beautiful island this week! I pray you’ll find God showing up in your lives every day even more than what I felt Him in mine yesterday! Blessings!

stupid, stupid, stupid, how could I be so stupid?

Last Saturday I spent from 7:45AM til 3 something PM at a friends house doing a multi family yard sale. My luck with yard sales are usually hit and miss. I’ve done a couple where I’ve come out with a decent amount of money, and I’ve done others where I’ve made $3.00. Seriously, $3.00.

For the most part we don’t do the yard sale thing, we take several loads a year to the local Hope Center and donate what we’re getting rid of. But this time we were hoping to make some cash for Hawaii. We got rid of about half our stuff, which was good. But only came away with about $60.00. So what was the stupid part? I’m getting there.

Sometime late in the morning I notice one of the ladies I was doing the yard sale with had a very pink neck and suggested she get out of the sun. My friend who was hosting the yard sale asked if we wanted any sunscreen. Here’s where the stupid comes in. I SAID NO. What the (bleep) was I thinking?!?!?!? Had I not just suggested that one person get out of the sun? Why in the world would I think it would be any different for me??!! Stupidly I was thinking, well, I might get a little pink, but I need a base coat before Hawaii, might as well work on that today. As Comic Bill Engvall says, “Here’s your sign.” (That would be a stupid sign, for anyone out there who hasn’t heard of Bill)

By Saturday night I was BRIGHT pink/red. Sunday I was pretty uncomfortable and getting very cranky if anyone or anything came in contact with my skin. Monday my skin started turning into sand paper. Reagan grabbed my shoulder and I couldn’t speak from the pain for a couple of minutes. Tuesday was more of Monday. We went to a local furniture store to look at bunk beds for the girls and the sales lady asked if I had just gotten the burn that day because it was still so pink. I had to extend my arm to reach Hannah to unbuckle her from the car seat and heard my skin pop. I actually looked to see if my shoulder had cracked open. Wednesday was still very uncomfortable, but finally feeling a little better. Today (Thursday) I’m still pink in the worst spots, but mostly starting to tan. And here’s the best part, I can lift my arms above my head without gritting my teeth and cuddle the kids again without having a strong urge to have Zale go hit up some of his clients for some good pain meds. (No, I would never really do that)

I don’t even want to think of the skin cancer I caused myself from that day of stupidity. You can be sure there will be ALOT of sunscreen used in Maui and any other time I’m out in the sun this summer! I don’t really need a tan!