It's been awhile since I've posted a "real" entry...

I'm slowly going out of my mind. And I know why. I'm not taking the time to do what I need to do so I can do what I want to do. There's an old Amy Grant song that I used to love to sing. The chorus goes something like this..."and I'd love to live on this mountaintop. Fellowshipping with the Lord. I'd love to stay on the mountaintop, 'cause I love to feel my spirit soar." I miss the days when I could drive wherever I wanted to without having to shut my music off and say, "what?" *grin* Tonight I got a taste of what it used to be like....Scott's working and the boys and I took off for a drive. It was so nice at first...the boys were simply eating their Vanilla Frosty's and talking between the two of them and I was able to get lost in the CD I was listening to. I loved it. And then we made a stop and by the time we got back in the car the boys wanted to include me in their conversations again. (not that I minded...too much. I love that my boys want to include me in what they're talking about and want to nurture that now with the knowledge that one day, if I don't nurture it now, they may very well shut me out...heck, they may shut me out anyway, but I'm praying and preparing for the opposite.) So, my time lost in my own little world was short lived ~ but wonderful, nonetheless.

God is good, though. He knew that today of all days I needed it. Yesterday the boys did this:

Yes, you see it correctly ~ they decided to make Caleb's mattress into a slide. It was perfectly ingenius, really, but perfectly dangerous, and, since they were supposed to be in their beds reading, perfectly disobedient. The picture is of them trying to get it back up on Caleb's top bunk. I had to grab my camera because it really was too much even for me to believe. So...on Wednesday mornings they get to go to Church for our MOMS group with me. They love going to church because they have so much fun in their classrooms and love to play with their friends, etc, etc, etc. Their punishment was that they would not be going to church this morning. (it wasn't a big deal for me to miss today...) However. I had gotten a call to help setup this morning, so long story short we ended up going to the church, but we were just going to help setup then we were coming home........... So imagine how thrilled I was when both boys threw up once we got to the church!!! YEE HAW! Yes, Caleb waited until we were in the kitchen to throw up three times (thankfully it was really the best floor to toss his cookies on), and Micah threw up in the hallway a little bit (bless his little heart...he actually tried to hold it IN his mouth until he got to the bathroom!), and then sat in front of a toilet for at least 10 minutes trying to (in his words) "make sure I'm done."

Now, I had figured that maybe this was just their body's reactions to not having eaten very much the night before, nor having a very big breakfast this morning, so after Caleb got everything out of his system I asked if he was hungry. :) He was, so I gave him a plain mini bagel. He ate all of it. When I offered Micah a bagel he didn't want it, and Caleb ate all of his, too. I thought, "Good! Caleb is okay ~ he just needed some actual food in his stomach. Micah's a bit more prone to tummy probs, so I'll keep an eye on him..."

Caleb lost both bagels on the way home.

Caleb was hungry when he got home, and since he refused to listen to me to not eat anything for awhile and snuck pistachios he got to throw up some more.

Micah just kept throwing up.

Life is wonderful all the time...and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in the clean white coats and won't they please come and take me away? Ha! Ha! (LOL!)

I love that God helps me laugh about this ~ when I'm on single parent duty at times I think satan just holds it all until Scott has a trip and then BAM! Woo Hoo!! There may be truth to that because I know my mind-set changes to a sort-of "I don't have to cook a real dinner! I don't have to have stuff all done...we can cuddle on the couch and watch movies and we can go to the park and play and then we'll come home and we'll do a marathon clean-up before Daddy comes home and we'll have a blast!" And my guard kind of goes down....it's not a good thing.

I'm workin' on that.

Scott doesn't come home until Saturday and tomorrow is our marathon cleaning day! See? Improvement already! :)

Okay...I had told my cousin, Dave, that I was going to blog about something very serious that I eluded to the other day. I'm finding that I'm just not ready to write about it completely yet, but I will ask you to please pray for some friends of mine. Well, that's not a completely true statement. The people I'm asking you to pray for weren't the friends of mine...their wife and mother was, but they need prayer in a very big way.

Scott, Caleb, Micah & I went to Redding over Memorial Day weekend (also my Dad's birthday), and when I arrived at our old church on Sunday morning a friend told me that a gal I used to know pretty well through our lady's Bible study had died of a drug overdose on Thursday morning.

Yeah. Christians hurt.
Sometimes in ways other people can't even fathom.
And many Christians who hurt have no idea how to get past it.
That makes me very sad.
And I can't even imagine how sad it makes our Saviour.

Janell had five children and step-child. Her husband Rodney is also a drug user....I'm angry, sad and angry all over again over the lives they were making their children live, but I am most of all driven to my knees for them.

Like I said, I'm not ready to write about the whole thing...maybe soon. Maybe not.

Please pray for them. Pray for me. Pray for our world to "search for the Lord and for His strength...and keep searching."

"Because He lives...I can face tomorrow. Because He lives...all fear is gone. Because I know Who holds tomorrow. Life is worth the living, just because He lives." (Gaither)

John 14:27.........