another reminder

sometimes it's helpful to go back through your blog posts and remember where you were last year and what you were doing 2 years ago and so forth.
One helpful thing for me was being reminded that my prenatal vitamins come in a dosage of 2 pills per day...about a year ago I was realizing that for the first time, and there is really no excuse for my not remembering that for this pregnancy as well.
hmmm.
Mommy brain?

M&M's

I found a game for youth group online tonight.
It went better than I anticipated!
The youth group games we used to play when I was a kid DO NOT WORK with our youth group. I think it has something to do with a generation gap and also with the fact that kids these days are dumb...but more on that later :)
So B and I are constantly trying to come up with stuff that DOES WORK with our group. What exactly does "work" mean? Well, it means the kids have to enjoy themselves at least a little bit...there have to be 5 or less teens sitting out (for reasons ranging from "I'm in an invisible full-body cast" to "I refuse to play this pointless game")...it has to last approximately 30 minutes...it has to either create a memorable moment in a group setting OR eliminate excess energy so the kids can focus on the Bible study OR make a point (we rarely try to make a point :)
Tonight's game was three-fold.
It started with 2 massive bags of Hy-Vee brand M&Ms b/c I am cheap on the church's behalf. We divided the bags in to 4 equal bowls and gave each group 6 plastic cups. There were 24 kids who showed up and 4 leaders (providence!) So each group of 6 kids with 1 leader had to start by racing to divide the M&Ms by color in to each of the cups. The first group to do that won the first round. Then, each teen had to take a cup and I wrote all the colors of M&Ms on the board and the groups had to consume the M&Ms in the order I had written them...so the kids with Red candies had to eat their whole cup ful first and then the kid with Orange ones could start, etc. until a team won by consuming all of their candy.
It took a lot longer than I thought it would...kids were really pushing themselves...many needed water...one kid thought he might have had gum lacerations...I said, "well, you're not bleeding are you?" he answered, "oh, no, not anymore."...many kids said, "You have completely ruined M&Ms for me"...others were cheering and pitching in...a few volunteered to eat 2 cups full to other kids wouldn't have to...in other words, the game WORKED.
Our next game was called "Shuffle Buns" and involves a tight circle of folding chairs with the teens sitting on them facing each other and one empty chair and one teen standing in the middle. The teen in the middle tries to sit down on the empty chair, but the rest of the group shuffles around the circle, so the empty chair is always a new chair. The kids were pretty messed up from the excess of candy, so it took them a good 3 minutes to get in to this game, but then it went pretty well for about 15 minutes.
These kids always amaze me...

at church yesterday

last night we had our "mingle" Bible Study meet at our house.
during our discussion time, one of the guys who tends to be more trendy in his dress than, say, my husband :), brought up an anecdote from Children's Church that he had taught with his wife that morning during worship service.
They were telling a story that involved not judging people on the way they looked, and he asked the children a question about poor people, "have any of you ever seen someone who didn't have very much money and walked around in rags and junky clothes?"
One of the six-year-old boys raised his hand, and pointed at the teacher's own I-bought-them-this-way ripped jeans and asked, "you mean like your pants?"

big girls

both of our little ones are now in big girl beds.
E moved to a twin sized and L is in a toddler bed.
both are thrilled.
mom, thrilled, but also tired, is currently manning the post outside the bedroom as L is supposed to be napping and is testing the boundaries of her newfound freedom.

ellipses

...
These three dots are my favorite mark of punctuation.
I use them completely incorrectly all the time.
They are really meant to show the omission of material in quoting other sources.
I feel like they are more commonly or effectively used in other ways.
I use ellipses to indicate a suggestion.
I suggest you pause and consider what I just wrote.
I suggest you insert your own opinion at this point.
I suggest you infer something.

An ellipses is like a super-charged comma.
They seem so multi-tasking...like a little black dress or cinnamon!

Almost all other punctuation marks are declarative in some way. They require a certain confidence to use them.
The period dictates a stopping of sentence...a final end to a thought...a decisive move.
The exclamation point does the same while also applying emotional import to the previous words!
The question mark expresses incredulity, disbelief, sarcasm, or curiosity to the previous words.
Dashes, semicolons, and commas are like elderly people who "hint" or "suggest" ideas but have a definite underlying opinion all the while.

Ellipses are a way to be noncommittal...they create movement of thought...they lend themselves to conversation...rambling, tumbling conversation...the kind where you talk until 4 a.m. without even realizing that you've hit major subject matter all across the board. Even the fact that there are three of them implies relation interaction!

Ellipses aren't speeches and lawyers and proclamations.

Ellipses are phone calls with my mom and blog posts and journal entries and 1/2 price appetizers after nine p.m. at Applebees without your kids.

Ellipses slip out of my fingers loosely these days...not just because I'm a lazy grammarian (though I am that as well!) but because I am in the elliptical season. Someday I might write my story...someday I might compose my magnum opus...at that point, my "t's" will be crossed, my "i's" will be dotted, and my punctuation will be impeccable. But for now, I communicate...I facebook...I blog...I parent...I snippet my thoughts and there is nothing more effective in communicating, blogging, parenting, and snippeting than the ellipses...but that's just a suggestion...

awaiting the story

I have a secret to tell.
I am waiting for a story.
I know that there is something that I am supposed to write, but I don't know what it is yet.
Everytime I experience something new, I wonder to myself, "Could this be it? Could this somehow be what I need to write?"
It's now been 30 years of life experience with no real story.
I'm not talking about recounting my life or writing just about things that happen to me. I am sure I would imbue any story with certain aspects of my experiences, but I really am waiting for that epiphany when something just comes to me and I can lose myself in the creation of characters and plot and heroism and villainous deeds and write a story.
I have written short stories for class before, and enjoyed them. But most would be stretched too thin to become a real book.
I long to write something for real.
Something that's good.
Something that people will miss reading when they come to the last page.
So far I don't have any leads.
But I feel like something's gotta be out there or I wouldn't be waiting for it like I am.

Sunday School

I am married to the best man I know.
I love the many other important men in my life and highly respect them all, but I naturally married the very best man out there.
I am currently taking a class from my husband.
It is a Sunday School class.
No one seems to do Sunday School anymore. It's not popular.
It is pretty much the opposite of small groups and focus clusters and coffee shop Christianity. It basically entails one guy standing up front giving information and a bunch of people listening to that information. It's pretty much just learning.

Now, Brett asks questions. He interacts. It's not JUST a lecture.
And we sit on couches rather than in a classroom style format.

But it's pretty clear that one person (a MAN no less) has more knowledge than the rest of us and is imparting that knowledge to us.
It's not a pooling of ignorance. There are right and wrong answers. There is truth and falsehood.
It's pretty revolutionary actually.

There are only a few other people in the class with me.

It's the teen Sunday School class.

Other than my husband, I am the oldest person in the room.

I have been to my share of Sunday Schools in the past, but for some reason this class has been amazing.

I think it might have something to do with the fact that my children are old enough to leave me freely for their classes and the nursery. There is no mid-service nursing going on. I can sit and focus on a passage of Scripture for the entire time period with no interruptions except the kid next to me crumpling up her Rock Star energy drink can and trying to make a basket with it, or the kid on the other side belching.

It's been eye-opening.

My husband is a learned man.

He knows a lot about the Scripture. Putting yourself under the teaching of the Word is a meaningful and life changing endeavor. Every week I have learned something new about a passage that I thought I knew already. Every week I have come away from the Scripture with a fresh, applicable thought to bring with me throughout the days ahead.

I would never wish to minimize the preaching from the pulpit that my pastor does during the main Sunday Service. I am so grateful for his messages each week and have always taken things away from those as well, but there is something about systematic TRAINING and COACHING that come through the teaching during Sunday School that cannot be matched in any other setting.

funny

I got the H1N1 vaccine the other day. They were giving it away free to pregnant women, and with the little "scare" we had and all the exposure we get to kids and teens through church, I decided to go to the free shot clinic.
As we left, they were handing out free hand sanitizer, so I took the container and stuck it in my car. Today, as I was driving, I noticed the little sticker on the side of the container.
"Compliments of W_________ Funeral Home"
Hmmmm.
So, just in case that shot didn't work...