stockpiling

Rice.
Rice is the center of our diet.

Don't blame it on the Liberians.
When I was 14ish, I moved in with my brother and his family. My SIL is Samoan and so we ate rice with every meal. Breakfast: rice with sugar. Lunch: leftover rice with random leftover topping from last nights dinner. Dinner: rice with random meat/vegetable on top. This is where my love for rice stems from.

Yesterday we went for our bi-monthly trip to Costco where we drop an amazing amount of money on lame things like tuna fish and toothpaste. Went down the rice aisle. No rice. Not a surprise since Costco moves their junk around constantly. So me and another confused customer found an employee and proceeded to ask them where they hid the rice this time.

No rice.
Huh? No rice?
No rice. We've been selling out about 1/2 an hour after we receive a shipment.
Well, then... when's your next shipment?
Dunno. I've heard either Monday or Tuesday.
What time do you open?
10am.

I had heard that organizations like World Vision were only going to be able to feed 2/3 of the people that they normally do because of a rice shortage, which of course means that a considerable amount of people will be dying of, and/or fending off, starvation. One point five million people, to be exact. With zeros, it looks like 1,500,000 people. That's 3 times the number of the entire population of Seattle.

Curious as to who is having such a major drought that might cause this world shortage, I perused the internet. First I saw that Australia wasn't aiming it's small water reserves towards rice, rather towards grapes. More money it them, apparently. But then I saw that there isn't actually a rice shortage!?!

So people are going to die and because...??





*update: we went to safeway this afternoon and scored the LAST bag of rice in the whole store.

zip it

So lately I've been trying to be more attentive (and therefor cautious) with my mouth.

I like to let people know when they're taking advantage of someone weaker, acting rude, impolite, insolent, out of line, that kinda thing. For obvious reasons, this isn't always okay, hardly ever appropriate. So, I'm working on it.

And I had a really good week until today.
I just wasn't thinking.
It's some subconscious thing that I just slip into without even giving it a second thought. hehe oops.
So it all started when I was being rather polite while driving today.
You get a 50/50 chance of me being nice while driving so I figure that it's a bono for the person who is on the receiving end of my hardwork.
This dude was trying to take a left out of a gas station on a busy two lane road. So I stop leaving ample room, allowing dude to take his otherwise impossible left turn. He's got his hat all tilted to the side, he's leanin back in his seat with just one hand up on the top of the steering wheel, swearin he's hard. He pulls outta the gas station with his window down and doesn't even cast a glance at the kind person who enabled him to drive in a forward motion that would be me. So, since my window was down, I figured that he might need to be reminded to use his manners when people act kindly towards him. As his window passed my window, it went something like this:

"YOU'RE WELCOME!!!" I shouted at him, as ugly and sarcastic as I could make my voice. As soon as it popped out, I knew that I shouldn't have. His behavior wasn't going to change because I yelled at him. He was probably just thinking, 'That's right you @$#%$%&,' as he went on his hardcore way.

It's so dang tempting for me to want to verbally right what I see as other peoples wrongs. But mostly, I want for them to know that I'm no naive little white girl that they can just walk all over. And for some strange reason, Jesus just won't let me alone on this one. He keeps reminding me that my job isn't to out-ghetto rude people. My job is to submit to the high King Himself.

Why is this one so hard for me to release? Why is it so hard to submit to others even when they're wrong? To let them think that I might agree with them or that I might be too much of a weiny to stick up to them... this is a rough one for me. It's rough to just be still and wait for God's command.

(jacked this from Danielle)

ONE Word

YOU CAN ONLY TYPE ONE WORD!

Not as easy as you might think. Now copy , change the answers to suit you and post it.
It's really hard to only use one word answers.

1. Where is your cell phone? good question...
2. Your significant other? Husband

3.Your hair? irritating

4. Your mother? working

5. Your father? fishing

6. Your favorite thing? coffee

7. Your dream last night? weird
8. Your favorite drink? COFFEE

9. Your dream/goal? satisfaction
10. The Room you are in? mine
11. Your hobby? coffee
12. Your fear? stupidity

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? dunno

14. Where were you last night? here

15. What you're not? there
16. Muffins? barf
17. One of your wish list items? books
18. Where you grew up? TUK T-OW-N
19. The last thing you did? debate

20. What are you wearing? jeans

21. Your TV? dusty

22. Your pets? hairy

23. Your computer? okeedokee

24. Your life? ---slowmo
25. Your mood? --- lackadaisical
26. Missing someone? --- no
27. Your car? dirty

28. Something you're not wearing? stilletos

29. Favorite store? bookstore

30. Your summer? rainy

31. Like someone? yes

32. Your favorite color? aqua

33. When is the last time you laughed? today

34. Last time you cried? tuesday?

sometimes it's good

Big P's epilepsy is a tougher issue that I had originally assumed (that would be before we adopted him)... the meds make him slow down mentally. Now try homeschooling him. Now try homeschooling him in hopes that he'll be fully caught up by the time that he should be in high school. Yeah, most days I feel like throwing my head up against the wall over and over and over.

But sometimes it's good.

He was having break through seizures while on his meds so the neurologist ordered up some blood tests and another EEG. The orders for the EEG were to keep him awake until midnight and wake him up at 4am (not sleeping greatly increases the chance of seizures). That was Monday night. I was so pooped that day that I wasn't sure I wouldn't fall asleep in the EEG room. Anyway, he didn't have a seizure, which means that the meds are actually working! Ta da!

Sometimes it's really good.

for Ashley

my favorite sign in all of Liberia:
and proof that Akon was loved before he was mauled (hehe):

the nice game

I'm not sure when we started playing 'the nice game' but boy I'm glad we did.

As a mom of six it seems like a complaining heart spreads more quickly than the flu around here. If I don't catch it, I prompt the family to play.


RULES:

• Everyone must say something nice to each person once.
• It is your turn promptly after someone has said something nice about you.
• You MUST give specific examples - no saying, 'I like Sue because she's nice.' Something more along the lines of, 'Yesterday when Sue and I were playing outside, and I got hurt on the slide, she came and gave me a hug. I really appreciated that.'
• You MUST not take too long in coming up with something nice to say about someone. If it takes you too long, that no longer appears nice and defeats the purpose of the game.

What makes this game so cool:

• It's free. That's cool.
• It helps the kids to learn to be attentive about others kindness OUTSIDE of the game
• It changes the entire atmosphere of the house. Everyone is always giddy after hearing and giving compliments.
• It changes perspective. Falling into the nag-trap is so easy. This is one of the few things that I've found can guarantee to pull all of us out.

Why on earth am I posting this?

• I have to play 'the nice game' all the time in my own head with people who I get ANGRY at
• I had to do this today
• It helped (along with prayer) to get my mind out of the if-only-you-would-listen-to-me- then-your-life-would-be-better-because-you're-obviously-not-doing-a-very-good-job-zone
• That happens to me a lot
• Getting into that zone, I mean
• It's not a good place to be
• Wanna play the game with me?
  

mother's day

I got an email today, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for all of us to not only think in advance, but to help out a wonderful cause.

Allow me to introduce you to AHope. It's an orphanage that houses children with HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia. They not only do an amazing job loving and caring for children, but they also treat them with expensive ARVs. AHope has a lot of wonderful programs that help to educate the community, adopt out HIV/AIDS orphans to loving and knowledgeable families, as well as a program that is working on keeping families, inflicted with this disease, together.

For this Mother's Day, they are offering BEAUTIFUL card (see below, there won't be any watermarks on your card though) for a minimum donation of $25 towards AHope. Please consider making a difference while reminding your mom how much that she matters.

Turning 7

Happy Birthday, Little P. I hope that you know how much that we love your silly laugh and your goofy demeanor around the house. Happy 7th little man.


(the best part of this birthday is telling complete strangers that I have 4 seven year old kids... hehehehe)

First official family photo

I hate timed photos. Like this one. See me? I'm checking to make sure that the timer is going to go off and probably saying something that doesn't need to be said...

Had I been behind the camera, I would've told Big P and little P to smile. I would've told myself that my neck looks like skeletor so please relax a bit and smile naturally for goodness sake. I would've told Miss F not to block Miss Z by doing that thing that little girls do. You know what I mean? That bending the head into the shoulders thing. I also would've noticed the small garbage-y paper things below the couch. How long has it been since someone swept under there?? Gross. I would've turned on the anti-red-eye thingy because, as you can see, a couple of us are plagued with photo-red-eye.

But I wasn't, so this is as good as it gets for now ;)

(here were the other options)

P.S. Why didn't someone tell me to put on some lipgloss!?!