On the Other Hand….(new title!)

My earliest childhood memory involves me standing on a patch of grass next to my garage at the house I lived in as a small child on the corner of Madeline Drive and Pasadena Avenue. The lawn next door had just been mowed and it was St. Augustine grass. That particular type of grass has a distinct, clean, "freshy" smell. It's hard to describe, but every time I smell it I'm brought right back to being 2 1/2 years old. I love that smell. Isn't it interesting that a smell would characterize my earliest memory? I still drive by that house from time to time and I always point it out to my girls. "That's the house I lived in when I was a baby!" I tell them. They've heard it a million times, but I'm glad they can see some of my history. Both my parents grew up far from where they raised me, and I never saw my Mom's childhood home. There's this huge part of her life that I can't relate to. I can take my girls past the pre-school I went to,...

So, I was in the library on Wednesday night dealing with library "issues" (damaged tape, found the "lost" book that I had paid $22 to the library for weeks ago, picked up books I had transferred from elsewhere in the Pasadena library system, etc) and I was making friendly conversation with the librarian who had braided his coarse, black, long beard. He had a mustache and other interesting hair designs on his head and I found myself curious about his creative personality. (He was one of those cool artist types that I admire. He would never say anything silly or rude - like me- because he's too cool. I really admire that.) He was very down-to-earth and friendly, but it was taking awhile for him to write up the paperwork for the damaged tape that my new $25 tape cassette player from Target had eaten up (ugh! That replaced tape will cost me $14!!!)I noticed on the desk a paper that read "Banned Library Patrons" and insructions to call the police, other lib...

Ahhh...Wednesdays...My older girls are gone all day (from 8:15 am till 4:40 pm!) and my middle girls are at school, of course. That leaves me at home with my little girls who are napping right now and I should be, too. I just got off the phone with my realtor/stepbrother's(Brent)assistant to open escrow on our rental property. Amazingly, we found very interested buyers for the property and get to start the mind-numbing process of selling the property with appraisal and inspection "events," loan approval deadlines and paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Thankfully, it's a 30 day escrow so hopefully it's just a month of stress and paperwork and then we'll be out of that property. Hopefully, we'll close escrow and come within pennies of having to bring any money to the table to get out of the loan. We lost a LOT of cash on the purchase of that property. I'm trying to think through what I could have done differently to have avoided such a loss...A couple of t...

I feel rather philospohical this morning. I went to the Corner Bakery last night with Julia in her car seat just to get out of the house and read my Bible and think. I got just a soft drink and, like usual, they gave it to me for free. This happens to me all the time there. They know me so well, and I've spent so much money there on food that they figure they'll keep me happy and coming back with free soda. They're right. Now, I don't expect a free soft drink, but they almost always give it to me if that's the ony thing I order. (I brought my own cookies last night because they were good and they were virtually free). Anyway, while sitting in a booth watching a worker out of the corner of my eye sweeping up their outdoor patio, I got a picture in my head of a stream of water. It seems that pain, in the form of trials, disappointments, etc. is that stream of water, sometimes rushing and sometimes gurgling, that God uses to soften the rocky places in my heart. Where p...

I generally like Monday mornings. It can be a bit tough getting the kids out of bed, but then that's true every morning. This Monday I had a hard time getting out of bed. After Julia woke up at round 3 am I fed her and then lay in bed thinking and unable to go back to sleep. The current challenge I'm facing just kept swirling around my brain and a peace about it wouldn't settle in my thinking, and then - wah la!(Is that how you spell that? The thing magicians say when their magic trick has reached its point of, well, magic?)The answer came to me and it was a thought, a realization, a thread of wisdom that will help me sew together a solution for a problem that I'm dealing with. I now need to pray for wisdom and God's provision to see how this solution materializes. Right now, however, my darling Daisy is wearing a turtleneck, a pull-up that smells like it's going to demand some attention, and reading a book to her brown monkey that she's placed in Julia...

It was a lovely, breezy, early Fall day in southern California today. I'm still amazed at how lovely the early Fall days have been lately. Tim went to Don-Don's to help him set up his TIVO. We love TIVO! So does Don-Don! He actually gave us our TIVO box and we have been big fans of it. I can even use it and that's amazing, given my technological imbecility (is that a word?) Well, this blogging thing is new to me. We'll see if I stick with it. My sweet little Julia, 10 weeks old today, is sqwuaking in her crib right now. Oh, I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight today! Something to celebrate! I've never gotten 35 pounds off in 10 weeks after having a baby. I think it's happening partly because I'm sleeping better than with my other babies and it's a mental thing, too. I'm done having babies and I'm ready to shed all this baby weight that's accumulated around various body parts. Love handles they call them? (Yeah, I "love" to ...