i think the moms should get the credit . . .

so today . . . this is my third attempt to write this blog. i don't know why i am having such a hard time finding the words to say what i want to say! i have come to the conclusion that maybe i am trying to say too much, so i am going to attempt to simplify. but you know how i am . . .

diandra has a friend. her name is bianca. diandra and bianca are fairly new friends, but they have some unique things in common. both of them have dads who are pastors. both of them have grown up to work on staff at their dad's churches (which means their dad is their boss!) both of them are women in ministry--not always an easy thing. both of them love teenagers. both of them blog. both of them have amazing, smart, funny moms :) and both of them are incredible speakers.

i get the opportunity to hear diandra speak almost whenever i want to, because she is our youth pastor, and part of that job means that she teaches the teens at our church. she also speaks at teen camp. she has been the chapel speaker at the high school she attended. she even occasionally preaches to our whole congregation. i ALWAYS enjoy hearing her, because she is interesting to listen to, she is funny, and she does an excellent job of challenging her audience--whoever they are. of course i am her mom, so i am also always incredibly proud--not only of what she does, but of who she is!

but tonight was my first opportunity to hear her friend bianca speak.

i have heard that bianca is a good speaker. she teaches different groups at her church, but she also travels around the country speaking, mostly to women and teens. i was anxious to hear her, because i have been reading her blog regularly since she started it a few months ago, and it always inspires me. tonight i was not disappointed. not only was she articulate and confident in her delivery, but her material showed a lot of preparation, knowledge, wisdom, and insight. she was funny and real, and i found myself responding and taking notes.

(of course, i had to take notes on my phone, because i can never find a pen. or paper. so i am sure everyone thought i was playing a game or texting someone--which i would never do, because that would set a bad example for the teens. and it would be incredibly rude! but i didn't want to forget some of the things she said, so i had to use my phone to write things down. even though the light came on. really, i was taking notes. they are right there in my phone if you don't believe me . . . )

i probably won't get to hear bianca speak very often. but it is ok, because i can read her blog. i love to read her blog. it is funny and smart and insightful, just like she is. sometimes it challenges me to think in different ways. sometimes it reminds me of things i know, but have somehow chosen to ignore. sometimes it gives me a picture that helps me remember something important. sometimes it just makes me laugh. but it always makes me think. always.

there are times when i think i am an island. but i'm not. friends are important. as bianca said tonight, the first thing God said was bad, was that man was alone. we need our friends to help us have fun, to encourage us when things get tough, to give us perspective when we have tunnel vision, to help us "hang in there" when we feel like we have had enough, to say, "dude, don't do something stupid"--yeah, that's how we talk here in socal--when we are about to dive over the edge. we all need people in our lives who share our world view and can not only encourage us but can also challenge us and make us think.

diandra is blessed to have found that kind of a friend in bianca. and consequently, i am blessed to have found her blog!

once again, my plan is thwarted . . .

so today . . . i wasn't going to blog. i have spent the day sitting on the couch with my computer and the tv--really very little human interaction--so i don't have much to blog about.

i tend to spend my time doing the urgent. for the last few weeks, the urgent has been dealing with all this stuff that we have accumulated that we don't have space for anymore. this morning a whole bunch of that stuff made it's way to the curb outside and into a big truck that took it off someplace to where other people can use it (i hope.) so for now, dealing with the "stuff" has been moved from the urgent list to the "i'll deal with the rest of it later" list.

today the urgent was working on the music files on my computer. yes, i know i talked about doing this a while back. you were probably under the mistaken impression that i had finished that project. i did finish a portion of it, but there is still a lot of music hiding on my computer that cannot be accessed by itunes. which is a problem.

it is a problem, because i have new musicians in the band at church, and they need more practice than i can give them during a 1 hour rehearsal on wednesday nights. so it would be really helpful if they had the songs we are learning on their ipods (because, as i am finding out, EVERYONE has an ipod--even if they don't have a cell phone, they have an ipod . . . ) but first, i have to find and retrieve these songs that are hiding from me and then import them into itunes--which, as you know, hates me.

so after lunch, i sat down on the couch with every intention of staying right there until i was done. i really need to have this music ready to distribute by tomorrow night. it could take several hours, but that's ok--it was time to take charge and get it done.

when i sat down, i saw the note diandra had left for me about taking care of some photography business for her. i figured it would take me less than an hour, so i decided to do that first. THEN i would tackle the music, because who knows how long that is going to take . . .

i pulled the photo files up on my computer and got started. of course i had issues with my dvd drive, because when has the dvd drive on any computer i have ever owned worked properly?!?! i kept trying different things until i finally successfully burned a cd. then, all i had to do was remember how i did it so that i could burn the second one. if i had known that what i was doing was going to work, i would have paid more attention to how i did it . . . i finally managed to get the second cd burned and then started on the next project. it turned out to be somewhat more complicated, mostly because i was working with almost 5 gigabytes of photos! that is a lot of pictures to be manipulating.

while i worked, i finished watching season one of meerkat manor. i first saw meerkat manor when i was out of town and staying in a motel that had cable channels. since we don't have cable at home, we love to watch the discovery channel and national geographic and tnt when we have the opportunity. we happened upon meerkat manor, and those little critters were so cute that when i found the shows on netflix, i thought, "yay!"

let me just say, i now know that this is not a show about cute, cuddly, furry little creatures. i mean the meerkats are cute and furry, but their social system is brutal. the matriarch, who someone should have named "attila" instead of "flower" rules the roost and it is not always pretty. they fight, they have forbidden pregnancies, they are ostrasized. they have to deal with predators and rival meerkat families and the elements of living in the african desert. sometimes the babies die. i almost stopped watching. rollie keeps reminding me that it isn't about being nice, it's about survival. i happen to think there has to be a way to survive and still get along with each other. but they are animals not people, and i guess even people have trouble with that one sometimes . . .

i finally finished the photograhy project, but it took several hours. i am happy with the result though, so i guess it was time well spent. i was working on wedding photos today, and they were just beautiful--so many sweet and fun moments!

and now it is past midnight. and the music files i need are still hiding from me on my computer. they did not make it into itunes. again.

oh well, "tomorrow is another day . . . "

the devil (donuts) and rollie . . .

so today . . . i was operating on very little sleep. you see, a charity is coming through our neighborhood tomorrow to pick up donations, and you know what i have been doing for the last couple of weeks! so i have lots of stuff to donate. but if i want it to be tax deductible, i cannot just throw it into bags and estimate it's value--according to our tax preparer, and my sister-in-law (who is pretty smart) each item must be documented. documentation of items i am donating to a charity is proving to be a major pain in the you-know-what!

so i was operating on very little sleep. i stayed up last night until the shopping channel started airing their "good morning" show. although it is based in florida (which is three hours ahead of us) i still decided that perhaps it was time to make my way to my bed. and collapse there. and sleep forever . . .

but i woke up at 9:30--even though rollie had closed the drapes so the sun wouldn't shine on me and closed the door with the dogs on the other side so they wouldn't lick me or walk on me or demand to be let under the covers. all precautions had been taken to ensure that i could sleep until lunch time if necessary, but still i woke up . . .

i tried to go back to sleep. i was sooo tired, but my stupid brain would not shut up!! i tried to think about blank space--my brain made a list on it. i went to my "happy place" (which, btw happens to be cozumel)--my brain started thinking about the heat and how i should really get up and check to see if rollie remembered to close the windows and turn on the air conditioning--which of course he did!! i can't even believe my brain tried to get me with that one, but it almost worked. and then i thought about breakfast--and decided i wasn't going back to sleep, so i might as well get up and eat.

yesterday a couple of my friends brought me a box of chocolate mini donuts. remember last week when i ate a whole box by myself in a day and a half? i thought that would be the end of my chocolate mini donut binge, but apparently that was not going to be the case . . . they brought them to me at church, and when we left i put them in my trunk, because we were going to subway for lunch and the top was down on my car and i didn't want anyone to steal them. but it was pretty hot in the trunk. and yet, when i got home and took the donuts out, they were still covered in chocolate! it was amazing! i don't know what they put in that chocolate coating, but it did not budge from those donuts. i know what happens to hershey kisses, and even crayons, when you leave them in a hot car, but that chocolate was fused to those donuts. they probably add some sort of bonding agent to the coating to make it stick, which will probably kill you if you eat huge amounts of it. which wouldn't be a problem for most people . . . anyway, i took them into the house, put them in the refrigerator, and they were fine. i really didn't plan to eat any of them yesterday, but as i said, i was up really, really late . . .

when i came down for breakfast this morning, i went straight for the donut box. i had left it out on the counter last night so the donuts wouldn't be so cold. i knew it was a risk, because although rollie won't touch those donuts (if he is going to eat a mini donut, he prefers the powdered sugar ones,) diandra might. and she usually goes into the kitchen when she comes home at night--i think just to see if i got any new food and if it is something she likes.

when i opened the box, it looked different. i felt like mama bear. someone had eaten some of my donuts--not all of them, not even half, but i could tell that some were gone. figuring it had to be diandra (because the dogs would have finished them off,) i popped a few in my mouth, swigged some diet soda (sorry mom, but i was up sooo late that i needed the caffeine--and i know that sounds bad too--needed caffeine--but i did . . . ) and went on about my morning. because if diandra wanted some donuts, that was ok with me--as long as she left me some.

fast forward to lunch time. rollie and i were at rubio's. again. you know why. we were sitting at the table waiting for our food, when rollie said, "i ate five chocolate donuts this morning!"

whaaaat?

he continued, "i couldn't help myself. i saw them sitting on the counter, and i ate one. and then i ate another one and another one, and i couldn't stop until i had eaten FIVE!"

my husband is the most disciplined person i know. he makes decisions based on what is right and then that is what he does, even if it is hard. he does NOT eat chocolate mini donuts--carbs AND sugar--are you kidding me?!?! he has decided to eat healthy, and so except for the occasional subway chocolate chip cookie (and o'henry bars at christmas) that is what he does.

i was flabbergasted! i was shocked! then i was delighted!! rollie ate five chocolate mini donuts (insert smiley face!) he said he couldn't help himself (insert a HUGE smiley face!!) he said he couldn't stop at one or two or three (ok, even a huge smiley face isn't going to do the job here--i need one that laughs hysterically . . . ) he said they were devil donuts!

the look on his face as he was telling me all this was priceless--i wish i had video. i know that he knew that i would be amused by his topple off the healthy eating pedestal where he usually resides, but there was also a hint of confusion on his face, like he was thinking, "i don't know how this could have happened to me . . . "

i do. it happens to me all the time. it's those blasted devil donuts--they are evil . . . i think it is something in the chocolate coating . . .

it's my mom's birthday!

so today . . . i did it. i paid real money for virtual stuff. what could possibly convince me to do such a crazy thing? my mom's birthday!

today is my mom's birthday and as i started thinking about a birthday gift, i was stymied. my mom used to be really easy to buy for, because she collected lots of things. but in the last few years, she has started decluttering her house (not that it ever looked cluttered to me--she had some beautiful collections!) stuff takes maintenance, and i think she got tired of taking care of things that she just looked at. or maybe she got tired of looking at it--i don't know, but the result was the same--the stuff started disappearing . . .

when i was at her house recently, i was keeping my eyes and ears open for ideas but got nothing. she gets her books from the library. she has so many dvds that odds are she would already have anything i would choose. it is hard to buy clothes for her, because i don't get to see her often enough to know what she has. and handbags are subject to personal preference, which makes them a difficult gift to give. i live too far away to take her out and do something fun! so, what to do, what to do . . .

my mom does like electronics. when we were visiting last month, we signed her up with sprint and got her the coolest phone ever, but i had my doubts about how she would adapt to the rigors of cell phone ownership--especially when diandra and i kept trying to catch her with her phone off by texting her at various times throughout the day (yeah mom, it was a plot!) we caught her a couple of times the first day or two, but i have to say that now she responds fairly quickly no matter what time it is. however i am not familiar enough with her new phone to have any idea about what i could get for her that would enhance her cell phone experience. so that idea led me nowhere.

the other day we were talking to each other on the computer, and she was telling me how her poor little virtual pet had no money. this is something we all experience from time to time (except diandra who seems to be the luckiest pet owner in the game when it comes to the daily lottery!) we were commiserating about how long it takes to earn coins to spend on fun stuff, when i thought, "aha!" so for her birthday, paypal and i bought her some coins to spend on her pet.

and it was fun! i was worried that she would be horrified that i had spent actual money on the game, but she wasn't--or at least she hid it well. we "shopped" together, and when i bought something as a gift for her, it showed up in her virtual pet's house in lovely pink gift boxes with bows on top--i didn't even have to wrap them!

she didn't spend all the coins today. and still she got a princess bed and dresser, a settee and chandelier with flickering candles, a jacuzzi tub and mirror for her bathroom, and a waterfall with moving water for her yard. but then she didn't have enough rooms in her virtual house for everything. so she did the only thing she could--she created a cute little virtual pet on my DAD'S facebook account. and named her lily. and then she gave lily all of her extra stuff. lily is kind of going to be "garage sale girl" for a while, i think. here's the funny part--my dad doesn't even know lily exists! he may never know. my clever mother has figured out a way to have two virtual pets.

i love my mom. she was a good parent when i was growing up, and is not to blame for my issues--i take full responsibility for the crazy way i think about things sometimes. she tolerates my diet pepsi consumption even though she knows it is bad for me, but compensates by also feeding me broccoli. she will spend over an hour in sephora with us when we just meant to stop in for a minute. she will watch high school musical 1 or 2 or 3 or whatever as many times as diandra wants to. she will make a second trip to the grocery store to get ice cream and bar-be-que potato chips because we ate them all and still had a few days left of our visit. she lets us do some of our own christmas shopping so that everything fits--even though it means she has to pay the dreaded california sales tax! she has become quite electronically savvy so that we can keep in closer contact. she has learned to text message and surf the web from her phone. she has a facebook farm, and accepts my goofy friends (you know who you are!) as her friends so they can advance in the game.

my mom is the greatest! she must be, because when i did a search of my blogs for the words "my mom," i found that i had mentioned her in 78 of my 204 blogs!now if only she would get on an airplane . . .