Because I'm A Bad Friend

Several days ago, Damselfly bestowed the "Nice Matters" award upon me. I ever so dutifully posted the graphic in my sidebar, and completely let the honor go unacknowledged.

(Damselfly, why on earth do you put up with me?? I don't acknowledge your awards, it takes me forever to return things that you loan me, and I barge in on you at your house without even calling first. I don't deserve you!!)

So thank you, dear Damselfly, for thinking of me in regards to this award. Now, it's my turn to pass it on!


Let's see. I'm going to give the award to:

1. Horseymama at A Day in the Life of a Stay At Home Mom because she's another real-life friend of mine, and well, she's nice. Very generous and helpful! Also a person that I know will actually pray for me when she says she will.

2. Mamabear June at the Path to Health, because she always leaves such encouraging comments when I post regarding the weight-loss challenge I am participating in.

3. Anne/kq at Life in the Ketchup Bottle. I've never met her, but I can tell by her writing that she must be a very nice person indeed.



Isn't it nice to get an award for being nice? That doesn't happen often. LOL!

First Baseball Game (plus weekly weigh-in.)

Hi! If you're here from Tales From the Scales, scroll down a bit for my weigh-in post.

Lance got to enjoy his first baseball game last night!! Hubby was able to score some AWESOME seats down on the field right next to the bull pen for the Cubs-Marlins game. (He got them through work somehow. Either from a client of theirs, or someone they are a client of-- I dunno. I get them all mixed up. I think Hubby's company buys software from the company that gave us the tickets, making Hubby's office the client??? Make sense to anyone?)

Anyhoo. It made for a great night out of the house, and Lance had SO MUCH fun!! One of the Marlins players (Miller,) who was hanging out in the bull pen gave a baseball to Lance! Isn't that sweet? We were hoping to get a photo of Lance with Miller, but there was a big sign on the fence between our little area and the bull pen that said "Do Not Disturb the Players During the Game." So we honored that, and just smiled a thank-you to him.

This little area where we were sitting is a pretty fancy-shmancy area. You didn't have to go out to the concession stands because they made hot dogs and chicken fingers right in there for us, and there was someone to serve us drinks. PLUS there were THREE hot-tubs in this area. No one was using them, so we let Lance splash around a bit. He had such a great time! (And got soaked. And got me soaked. And got Hubby soaked.)

Do any of you find an unfair ratio of pictures of your child with their father to pictures of your child with YOU? I'd say ours is about 5 to 1. TONS of pictures of Lance with Hubby, and only a handful of them with me. When he grows up, he'll think I wasn't around. I'll just have to remind him that yes, in fact, I was there because I was the one who shot the picture. LOL!

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Well, it's time for a new challenge. Last week I reported an 8-pound weight loss for the duration of the May Day Weight Loss Challenge sponsored by the ladies at Tales From the Scales. Well, this week we begin a new challenge! The Look Great in 2008! Challenge.

My starting weight for this challenge was 149.8.

This morning, I weighed in at 148.2. Hooray!

Total loss for the week? 1.6 pounds. Not bad at all!!!

Family Mission Statement

I belong to a bible study group composed of moms. We have a very descriptive (albeit not too creative) name for the group:

Tuesday Morning Moms.

I just adore it! Anyhoo, we've just started a new book called Mom PhD and the first chapter compares the running of a home to the running of a business. Many businesses have vision/mission statements, so the author challenges us to come up with a mission statement for our family. This is what I came up with.

Honoring God, Loving Each Other, Caring for the World.

Very broad, I know, and can mean a lot of different things, but when I think about what I want my family to be like and how it will function, I think that's the way it should be. Honor God and His commandments. Love each other. Care for the needs in the world. That also goes along with what our pastor is currently preaching on. She is encouraging us to have a "ministry in the church and a mission in the world."

Yesterday I wrote about how my band played at a local homeless shelter. Well, I'm hoping to begin volunteering there or doing something to help meet that need. There are needs in this world everywhere we look. While it's wonderful for church people to take care of each other, it's so easy to forget that there are people outside our church doors yet in our backyard that need our care.

I hope I can raise a family who will honor God, care for each other, and care for the needs of the world.

What can you do to take care of a need? Maybe you can bake some cookies to take to YOUR local homeless shelter. Do you know anyone who has family in the military overseas? Send a care package. Donate some school uniforms to a school in a low-income area, or volunteer a couple hours a week to do some tutoring.

I've been thinking about things like this all week. What are the two most important commandments? "Love Your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."

I hope that my "family mission statement" will stir the members of my family to be able to do just what it says:

Honoring God, Loving Each Other, and Caring For the World.

Beware the Babysitter!

This is what happens when you leave your little boy in the care of your friends who have two daughters.

"Mommy, I don't think this blue dress matches my grey and green baseball shirt. Can you please ask my babysitter if she has it in a different color?"

This is also what happens when you leave your baby in the care of your friends who have recently left the baby years, so they clearly miss the days of wrestling squirming, wriggling, infants into tiny little bitty clothes. They miss it so much they keep putting different costumes on your child.

Now that's more like it!


Tee hee hee. Poor Lance.

He spent several hours yesterday afternoon at the home of my friends C and K while Hubby and I were with our church band, playing at a local homeless shelter. We played outside for about two hours. It was quite the experience. I'm not sure if "shelter" is quite the right word for it, it was more like a halfway house. People have to go through an orientation program, and they are required to look for work and find it. As they get more and more on their feet, they "graduate" to nicer living areas.

I think the thing that most struck me was the children. When you think of homeless people, you don't often think of children. But there they were! It was really quite heartbreaking. While I know that God used our band to bring some joy and light into these people's lives, I think we all learned a thing or two as well.

Weight Loss Challenge: Final Results

Well, this is the last week of the May Day Weight Loss Challenge that I joined beginning in May. My goal was to lose 20 pounds. I didn't quite make it, but I have made significant progress toward that goal.

My starting weight was 157. This morning, I weighed in at 149 for a total loss of 8 pounds for this challenge, an average of a half pound a week. I was hoping to do better, but you know the saying, "Slow and steady wins the race." I found that I did better losing weight when I weighed myself more frequently. It allowed me to see the results of the previous day's eating/exercising. I discovered that you can ruin an entire week of healthy, good choices by indulging yourself on the weekend. I also discovered that I am less likely to lose weight in a given week if I drink soda, diet or otherwise.

I learned that "useful" calories are much more filling than an equal amount of "empty" calories. For example, a sandwich made with Pepperidge Farm Harvest 7-grain bread will keep me full for HOURS. The same sandwich on white or even "honey wheat" bread requires additional side items for the meal, and I'll be hungry again sooner. Not only do you feel full eating less food, your body will feel a satisfaction that you don't get from junk food. It's almost like you can feel your body absorbing all the nutrients and putting them to use, rather than storing them up for later or simply getting rid of them.

Fortunately for me, the gals at Tales From the Scales are beginning a new weight-loss challenge, "Look Great in 2008!" I will join in this one as well. If you'd like to be part of a community of bloggers with the goal of becoming more healthy and losing weight, please join in with us! You simply weigh in each week and report your goals, successes, failures, improvements, etc. You do not have to post your actual weight, but instead can just say how much you lost or gained in a given week.

My ultimate weight-loss goal is 120, which is, according to the "charts," a healthy weight for my height and age. That means I have 29 pounds to lose. Let's see how much I can lose during this next challenge!

The three things I am going to focus on for this challenge are:

1. DRINK WATER!!
2. Add fruits and veggies
3. Reduce salt intake

Good luck to all my fellow participants!

First Haircut

Here are pics from Lance's first haircut!! I'll come back later and edit this post with the story, since it's WAAYYY too early in the morning and I'm not thinking clearly yet. :) (Gotta love those wee-hour postings, hmmm?)

An Unexpected Burst of Productivity

Wow. I have been more productive this morning than I am in some entire days.

It's 9:45 am. Already, I have:

-Fed and dressed Lancelot
-Showered (including washing hair, shaving legs, and underarms!), dressed, and fed myself
-Done a load of laundry
-Finished loading the dishwasher
-Pulled linens off the guest bedroom bed
-Written a blog post! :)

It's a good feeling to be productive. Why can't I do this other days? I'll tell you why. I'm not always expecting weekend guests. My parents are coming for the weekend, so I want the house to be in good shape for them! Not that they expect it to be spic-and-span. They're very understanding. The best parents a girl could ask for, actually. Anyhoo. I guess because I know they don't expect my house to be perfect causes me to want it to be nice for them.

It's amazing how much I can get done when I've a mind to. Other days, I wouldn't have bothered showering yet, and most likely right now I would have gone back to bed while Lance takes his morning nap, rather than spending it blogging and continuing clean-up.

I still have left to do:
-Wash the sheets for the guest bedroom
-Clean the second bathroom and prepare it for grown-up use (which means picking up the bath toys and removing the faucet guard, also putting the shower curtain back down. Right now it's looped over the rod so Lance won't tug on it during his bathtime!)
-Vacuum the floor
-Windex the glass-top end tables and coffee tables
-Clear away clutter
-Go to the grocery store
-Get Lance's first haircut. (This one makes me nervous! He really needs to get his hair cut because it's growing down over his ears and is starting to look like a mullet in the back. Thankfully, I have a friend with 6 children who has a hair salon in her home. If I can trust anyone to cut his hair, I can trust the woman who has cut the hair of her own 6 children!) Our appointment is at 3:30 today.

So much to do. I better get my rear end out of the computer room and get to work!!

Wishing you all a productive day!