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Sunday, March 30, 2008

Do We See People the Way God Does?

I was driving downtown in the big city last week. Downtown in the big city can be an interesting place to be in the afternoon. There are homeless people and environmentalist type people and sometimes protesters protesting protests, you get the idea. Not exactly a friendly looking crowd all the time.
Anyway, I was sitting at the stoplight in downtown and the thought came to my mind. Do I see these people the way God does? He loves every one of them. Do I see them, do I see everyone in the light of that value? That is such a high value. How would we treat people if we were conscious of that thought every day? The annoying person who cut in line at the store...God made them and loves them. The telemarketer that calls trying to sell you something you don't want...God made them and loves them and wants them to know Him.
As I was thinking this I was watching people cross the street in front of my van. I watched a girl in sort of funky Goth clothing cross the street and walk up next to a shaggy looking older man waiting to cross at the other light. God loves both of them I thought to myself. Then the girl smiled and I thought God is probably thrilled to see her smile.
So do you think about that when you see people? I know I don't think about that often enough. I think if I really thought about that more often, it would change how I relate to people, especially people I don't know. God sees them with such value and He wants them to know Him. He knew them before they were born. He saw fit to create them. Maybe we all need to see with "God eyes" more often.

Back at last

I didn't blog this week as we were busy getting ready for a surprise birthday party for Colin's mom. All I kept wanting to blog was about the party, so I didn't write anything so she would be surprised.
We had a great time celebrating the big number 60 with her. Everyone showed up at her house and surprised her. We threw a potluck and had an interesting menu of some soups, casseroles, salads and KFC chicken.
She got lots of plants for her birthday and a cool cart to haul things around with. I took lots of pictures. She's such a plant person. At one point she got a bleeding heart plants and she and her sister oohed and ahhed over it. I chuckled to myself over that thinking of the difference between mom (the plant person) and me (the not so much a plant person). I probably would have said something like uh-huh or oh, that's nice if someone had given me a bleeding heart, but not mom, she was excited about it. Probably because she knows exactly what it looks like and where she wants to put it in her yard!
I had put together a photo album of pictures of mom with other people. It was supposed to be 60 pictures but, of course I had too many so I just put them in there anyway.
We had such a fun time. I hope Colin's mom did, too. Happy Birthday Mom!

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Dilly and the Big Green Monster

Today I am rejoicing that the Colin's recliner, the ugly orange, nasty, abomination to my poor eyes is no longer in our house. It is now in the garage ,soon to be gone forever.
The miracle started on Thursday at our small group meeting. Colin sat in one of the recliners and commented that he need a recliner like the one he was sitting in and I said I had wanted him to find something like that rather than the recliner that's older than me and did I mention, it's ugly? Then we had to share the whole story of the acquisition of the ugly orange recliner. Which then led to one of the men at the small group offering us his recliner as he was getting a new leather one. Boy, I jumped on that offer. I thought Colin would follow up with him, but he didn't so I talked to him about when would be a good time to pick it up.
So last night Colin called him and then left to go pick up the recliner. I stayed home with Ian and ended up talking on the phone to my friend Dottie. While I was talking, Dilly decided that she wanted to go out. So I turned on the porch light as it was very dark out, got the dog on her leash and headed out the door, still talking on my cellphone.
It's a good thing that I didn't have the phone and the leash in the same hand because just as we were coming out the door, Colin came around the corner carrying the new recliner. All you could see was this big, dark, hulking shape with some legs moving toward us. Dilly tried to drag me to Mexico, she was so scared. She pulled me off the front porch so fast I almost fell.
Colin was perplexed as to why I was bringing the dog out when I was helping him. The answer, of course was that I had no idea that he was home. I guess I had turned on the outside light right as he was driving in or getting out of the van so he assumed that I knew he was home. Unfortunately for Dilly, I had no idea that he was home.
So Colin kept carrying the recliner and I tried to get Dilly to go for her walk. She wrapped the leash around the porch support beam trying to make sure she got nowhere near the big green monster. I had to drag her away from the porch.
When we returned from her walk, she didn't want to go on the porch and I had to drag her into the house. Then she ran around inside the house with her tail tucked and refused to go in Colin's office where the recliner had been placed. In fact, she's still not happy about the big green monster. We had to coax her into Colin's office this afternoon, which is where I am right now and Dilly is as far away from the big green monster as she can get and still be in the same room.
Well at least one of us is happy about the new recliner!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Why I Love My Little Town

Well, I've lived in my little town for about a year and a half now and I've decided that I do love this little town. It's small, about 3000 people. There aren't millions of things to do here and if it's after 11, I'm pretty sure there's nothing to do.
Colin and I were talking about our little town on our drive home and I decided that it reminded me somehow of Kansas. I think it's that unlike where we lived last in WA, I can see for quite a distance. There are fields nearby and I hear frogs singing a chorus at night and birds serenading in the morning.
I can see the stars on a clear night right in my front yard instead of having so many lights that the stars disappear. People are friendlier in my little town than in the bigger city. There's less traffic and most of the time, people aren't as rushed.
There's a sense of community that is missing in the bigger city. When the high school sports team is playing most of the town turns out to root for them.
My little town has the best restaurant in the whole world (I know this, of course, because I checked out all the other ones). Not only is it a great restaurant, it's also a bakery and they make yummy gourmet things. I know it's really good because they're only open M-F from 10-3:30. If they weren't the best, they'd have to be open more hours. Plus, they always seem to be sold out of coconut cream pie. One of these days I'll get a slice.
My little town has a cute little barber shop that Colin and Ian go to for hair buzzing. We like to go when the husband and wife team are working, they think Ian is pretty cute. Ian thinks they're great because they give him candy.
I guess my little town is a little bit of Kansas, Mayberry and the Northwest all rolled in to one. What a great place to live.

Friday, March 14, 2008

And The Winner Is......Ian!!

This Wednesday at AWANA they had green night. That's where the kids dress in lots of green and the kids with the most green (voted on by their peers) get a prize. I had asked Ian if he wanted to go all out for green day and he said 'yes'. So at least three weeks prior to green day I started gathering green things.
I knew Ian had a green shirt, but that wasn't enough so we went to the store and got another green shirt and green sweatpants. I found a green visor and green shamrock stickers, so we got those, too. I looked for green face paint and green balloons, but I didn't find any, so they went on my list to look for at every store I went to.
Later, I found a cool green Leprechaun hat at Target and I finally did locate face paint and green balloons and I had also purchased some green shamrock garland. We definitely had a full load of green items.
So green day arrived and I had Ian dress in his green shirt and green pants. While he was doing that I took his other green shirt (which was a button down shirt) and safety pinned green balloons to the back (6 in all). Then, I painted Ian's face green (he still looks slightly green today, two days later). I put green stickers on his tennis shoes and on his balloons and pants. After we put on his second shirt, I wrapped the garland around the balloons and fastened it on with some safety pins. Then we topped off his outfit with two balloons on his knees (one for each) and the visor and hat on top of his head. He looked like a strange, slightly deranged Leprechaun (in a cute sort of way).
Guess what???! He won (I know, that doesn't really surprise you as I pretty much announced that in the title and you just read how much green he was actually wearing), he was so excited. He chose 5 AWANA bucks for his prize.
On the way home that night he told me that he was pretty sure God helped him win to make up for the fact that he hadn't gotten clubber of the month. I'm glad he won. It's not easy being green!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Freaky Friday

Friday was interesting, to say the least. Colin took the day off and thought he'd get to stay home, but he didn't check with me about the schedule, so he ended up going all over with me.
I had my first mammogram ever. It was okay. I wouldn't put it on my list of favorite activities, but it wasn't horrible, just uncomfortable. After that, we had lunch and ran a couple of errands and then went back to the clinic for my allergy shot, which I haven't had since the end of December. So now I'm back to once a week for a while, bummer.
After the clinic, we headed to pick up Ian (he had spent the night with his grandparents). He was at his great aunt's house playing with cousins and having a great time. We let him play for a while and then we headed to Ian's grandparent's house where we had a little dinner and headed to our next event: AWANA games practice. That was from 6-7:30. At the end the kids all got a slice of pizza. I had wondered if this would cause a little problem for Ian and it did. They had ordered the two types of pizza the kids typically like: cheese and pepperoni. Unfortunately for Ian, he's not typical. He got his plate, waited in line and then very politely asked for a piece of supreme pizza, which of course, they did not have.
He was very tired at this point and got very unhappy, but finally we got him to choose a slice of pepperoni so we could go home. My plan was to get Ian home and in bed as soon as possible to have him well rested for the AWANA games the next day.
My plan was not success, thanks to my husband.
When we got home, I was getting ready to do some laundry out in the garage. I had been out there a few minutes when I heard Colin sort of groan/scream. I didn't think too much about as Colin always reacts very loudly to any tiny thing. If he has a paper cut or stubs his toe he sounds like he's going to die in just a moment. So when I heard him holler, I really didn't think too much about. When he hollered a second time, I was a little annoyed, but thought 'I guess I'd better see what's going on'.
I came back inside to find Colin on the floor moaning a little bit. He had tripped over the baby gate that he had put up to block Dilly from the hallway.
[What you need to know is Colin had been putting the gate up too loosely. Every time Ian tried to climb over it, it would end up falling over. The weekend before Colin tripped over the gate, I had discussed the looseness of the gate and asked him to stop putting it up loosely. I told him someone was going to get hurt].
I asked Colin if he wanted my help and he told me no. So I was in the bathroom when he decided that he did need help. (Why does everyone NEED you the second you get in the bathroom?)
When I came back to help Colin he was very shaky. He had tried to get up on his own and found that his ankle wouldn't support his weight. Ian and I helped him to get up and he hopped to his recliner and put his foot up. He was still shaking, so I called the consulting nurse.
Instead of putting Ian to bed, we ended up heading back to the clinic to make sure that Colin hadn't broken a bone. The clinic checked him out and he had x-rays (Ian got to help the x-ray tech carry the films after each x-ray. It was like a late night field trip for Ian). Colin had just sprained his ankle, so they gave him an aircast, told him to keep his foot elevated and sent us on our way. It was after midnight by the time we got home. So much for getting Ian to bed early!
Just so you know, Colin's ankle is much better. It probably was just a light sprain.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

The Well-Traveled Dog

Dilly has been leading an exciting life this week. She's been to several cities. She's played with cousins and their dog, Jacob, a Sheltie about a month or two older than Dilly. She has traveled to the dentist (for me) and waited in the van, the doctor's office twice (for me again). She went to Pet Smart (for her) and had difficulty with the tile floor. She fell down, all four feet sprawled out at least three, maybe four times. She has gone to church twice (and waited) although she did go for a walk there and also at the Dr.'s office. She even traveled to the Awana games and waited in the van.
Dilly is definitely getting used to going in the van. She has even started putting her favorite toy in her mouth and waiting at the door when we start getting ready to go!

Signs of Spring

 
Here's a picture of the sweet little crocus in my backyard.
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Ready To Go

 
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Dilly decided that she should grab her red bone to get ready to go on a little trip with us. She was so cute! She kept going back and forth between our front door and our door to the garage to see if Colin was ready to put her in the van.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Hilly Dilly

 
Dilly loves the hill at our house. Since we're on a corner, we have a pretty steep drainage ditch. It's pretty great for sledding if it snows, but it's really great for exercising Dilly. She loves to tear down the hill after her tennis ball and come running back up the hill with the tennis ball in her mouth. It's her favorite game.She looks so happy when she's running on our hill. She's funny about it, too. She'll come back with the ball and lay down right at the edge of the hill with her tennis ball. As soon as she lets go of the ball, it's rolling down the hill and she's off again on a wild game of fetch. Our whole family gets out there to watch Dilly on the hill, it's great entertainment. Colin said we've seen more of our backyard in the month that we've had Dilly than we did all last summer. I told him we've seen more of the backyard than we've seen the whole time we've lived here. Nothing like a dog to get you out of the house and into the great outdoors!
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