After a busy day at church, complete with a Sunday School Christmas concert practice, accompaniment on piano during the service and a fellowship meal to prepare, eat and then clean up, the last thing I feel like doing is digging out Christmas ornaments to deck the halls. Falalala….falafel. ‘Cause I feel like the former ground-up …
Over and over again, a common theme is voiced to me about The Church. That it is a place of hypocrisy, a magnet for legalists, the anti-thesis of true godliness. And in ways I have to agree. There have been several church groups and particular people in the congregations I have attended that would certainly …
What happens when three children, one Grandmother and two Mamas/Aunties go shopping together in a crowded mini-van during a down-pour? A whole lot of candy gets bought. And very few Christmas gifts. Santa should provide a few of his slacker elves for babysitting service and maybe a reindeer or two for entertainment. Believe you me. …
Is it just me, or are we as a western society forgetting what it feels like to anticipate the anticipation of a holiday, season or milestone such as Christmas? (And this sentiment could be applied to other holidays spread throughout the year). But since Christmas is coming, and it is the biggest holiday of the …
Love isn’t love. Until you give it away. She leans in to talk to me, dark eyes sparkling. A beauty of a girl. I ask her what she has planned for the rest of the weekend. And then, her face lights up. And she tells me that she is going to see her son as …
Summer heat, haze of humidity presses down. I am sitting on the porch swing. It is August, and I have escaped to get a break from the children, from the craziness going inside the house. I settle in with a good read, or so I hope. And occasionally, I look up from my book to …
Another typical evening at the Gard household. Everyone going off in different directions. And so it was immediately upon finishing supper that we all left home together, half of us going in one direction and half in the other. As my regular Thursday evening activity was cancelled, I was given the rare and exquisite privilege …
I am standing in front of him, my fists clenched. I feel frustration in every pore, every cell. My blood pressure is on the rise. Pulsating. Throbbing. Everything is crashing down around me, and I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. Sometimes a day just seems to bring more than one has …
I think I just might need to start getting more creative with my overall life organizational skills as well as with my child-rearing methods, as my status updates are becoming increasingly redundant (a.k.a ‘kids fight, I scream, exhaustion sets in, sanity starts slipping…’) Here is part of what I wrote as my blog update last …
It’s been an interesting, eventful, exhausting day. I woke this morning, and about an hour and a half into my day, I actually thought to myself, “This could make for one funny blog this evening.” Stress on the could. There are some days when it is even a stretch for me to find the funny …
I had a conversation the other day with a friend on the subject of, among other things, how absolutely fantastic and wonderful my children indeed are. She said it first. And yes, you read that right- I, the mother that tells it all, just like it is, agreed that my children were amazing little individuals. …
Second youngest daughter is that excited about tomorrow. Her class is going to a local veteran’s cemetery. You read that right…she is excited about going to a cemetery. She actually asked me for camouflage pants, and my guess is she believes this will help create the mood necessary for one visiting a war memorial/veteran’s grave …