Insanes, Trains, and Automobiles

This has been such a busy week! I can hardly count the amount of time I have spent running around town, taking kids to preschool, attending meetings, and working on stoking all the fires I've got going with my various obligations.

Today, after dropping off an ad that will run in the paper for my church, Bud was pitching a wall-eyed fit to go see the choo-choos he had spyed on our way to the newspaper. Since the historic trains are located a block away, I figured this would be a thrilling detour for my train-fanatic 3 year-old son.

As we're driving over to the train station, we noticed one or two people kinda wandering the streets. This is not uncommon in this part of town, as there are homeless people who live under bridges and in any type of uninhabited, unpatrolled shelter they can find. There was one lady in particular who was standing at the side of the road next to the bus station. I smiled pleasantly as I drove my middle class-mobile past her, with my Britax carseats in the back of my car.

Bud exploded with enthusiasm once he was unbuckled and the door opened, much like King of the Wind bursting out of the gates at the Preakness. Not only did we get to walk through the engineer's area on the steam engine, there was also a chain of diesel engines refueling right across the way, which we got to observe. As we were walking alongside the historical train, taking in all the choo-choo wonder, I started thinking about how easy it would be for someone to come and either: a) snatch my child, or b) kill me and snatch my child. Morbid? ABSOLUTELY! It was one of those creepy, weird, "No one knows we're down here, there are no other people visiting this area, and it's known to have a lot of crime." The fact that we were there in broad daylight didn't ease any of my anxiety, so as soon as we walked to the playground at the other end of the track, we turned around and headed back to the car.

By the time we got back to the car, I could hear all this shouting. The lady with all the luggage was standing in the middle of the road, shouting so loud and angrily that I actually thought either a dog was growling or a man was growling. She was a block away, yet it sounded so near by! I start yelling at Bud to get his little hiney over to the car, which of course, begins a temper tantrum which could only be rivalled by someone telling Lindsay Lohan that happy hour is over. As I'm trying to explain to him that we need to go (without frightening him to the same extent that I am), he's still throwing his little fit. I've seen enough M. Night Shyamalan movies to envision turning around and standing up after buckling him in, only to have this lady all of a sudden standing right there, screaming in my face. We practically peeled out as we left.

As we were leaving, I noticed the crazy lady was loading her stuff into the back of a yellow cab and wondered just what her story was, as well as why she had frightened me. She looked as though everything she owned was probably in those suitcases, and I felt so ashamed of how extravagantly I live in comparison to so many people in our local area who are homeless, including children. In fact, I had even seen a pile of what looked like shrapnel or some kind of weird refuse under the bridge that goes over the tracks. What caught my attention was the American flag draped over that pile of whatever-it-was. It broke my heart to think that it could be a military veteran living over there. (Sidebar: I have even read reports of homeless veterans around the local area who are in their twenties and thirties, veterans of the current war that is raging. Who would have even thought it possible! Definitely not the first image that comes to my mind...)

I'm still musing over this whole experience. I'm not even sure I have any profound words or thoughts to share; just wanted to put it out there as food for thought.

Thursday Thriller: "Male Pattern Blindness"

As many of you know, I love love love this one particular blog from Indiana entitled, "Playgroups Are No Place For Children." Once again, Jennifer, Le Binky Bitch strikes back! While I am not married, I have been before, and I have briefly shared space with a certain someone who is tall, bald, super good-looking, but has asked to remain nameless here on the blog (but I digress...). From my limited experience, I have to say I think she's onto something!

To read this particular article, click on the title of this blog. HOWEVER! Don't miss the other posts she's put up today. If you want to read all of them, click here. For example, she takes a critical look at what the real difference is between toddler sizes 24mo. and 2T...

Have a laugh on me!

Triple Snap Action!

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

"Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh."

Sounds like Chicas '07, right?!?

"Just Like The Seeds In The Birdfeeder, So Are The Days of Our Nests..."

By a showing of hands, how many of you had the theme song of "Days of Our Lives" ticking in the back of your minds just a second ago?!? Man, I crack myself up... Hahaha!

John and Marsha are sticking pretty close to home these days. I don't think I've seen Marsha rise once from her post. I saw John and his father-in-law having an early morning conversation over at the birdfeeder just before he and the wife hit the sky after the Easter weekend. Apparently they had wanted to be here for the hatching but could only take so long off of work. So, they left the expectant couple with well-wishes and got going around sunrise.

Chyna has apparently been crashing at some other nest, because she has been completely absent from the construction zone that is their nest. Apparently Rex has been guilt-tripped into finishing the home improvement project before Chyna is on nest-rest, as he has been working his tailfeathers off to finish the nest and have an end to Chyna's constant nagging. As I walked out on the porch the other day to water my garden, he stopped his construction to wait impatiently on the fence, as if to say, "Hey, lady, can't you see I'm tryin' to work here?!?"

Luke and Laura are keeping things close to the vest. Apparently Laura's nesting instinct must've kicked in at some point, because the string of partiers and fly-bys are dwindling. There is little ruckus going on on the front porch these days, except the rare times Luke is allowed to hang out at the birdbath with a few buddies. And even though I have dark solar screens on the windows here in the office, any time I am typing on the computer and one of them is at the birdbath, they hop around and cock their heads like they know I'm talking about them and are trying to size me up. Maybe I shouldn't be using their real names, due to Internet security reasons... I'll take it into consideration...

Join me again soon for another installment of my birdie saga! Until then, be tweet!

Reflections on Ecclesiastes 3:11-14

If you want to read the text in its entirety, just click on the title of the blog. For those of you who don't want to be having to click back to the entire section, I'll insert the particular verses as I go along...

I was sitting in the local middle-class crack house Starbucks yesterday, settling in for my morning hit cuppa Joe, fulling intending on working on some reading I have to do for my Gospels class. Instead, I felt the need to be in the Word. As usual, I didn't really know where to start. When I'm in one of those moods, I start from Psalms and work from there. Before I even got to Psalms, I got snagged in Ecclesiastes. Here are some reflections of mine from this passage...

I love the simplicity of life in vv. 12-13. Right now I'm struggling with different things, and I seem to have to make every single thing a matter of spirituality, morality, or some other heavy category. I'm not taking joy in many of the things I have in my life. The simplicity of being happy and doing good almost seems too easy. (Sidebar: a friend of mine recently said she was "focusing on being relaxed and groovy." She totally is to begin with, and she seems to easy going and happy. I want relaxed and groovy! I'm so tired of being high-strung and stressed out!! But I digress...) This is a good reminder to lighten up and take each day for the blessing that it truly is -- Lord knows that, if anyone, I can understand the concept of, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may."

The first sentence of v. 11 has a different meaning to me today. To back up just a little, vv. 1-8 is the famous passage which talks about there being an appropriate space in time for all things to transpire. The way in which I'm hearing v. 11 differently today is in that God's timing is the key to beauty and goodness. Allowing things to transpire on His economy of time, rather than my own, is what yields goodness and blessings. I can sum this up for you in one word: TRUST. It is soooo hard for me to do this with God, or anyone else for that matter, even though it is what I truly desire.

Lastly, I'm seeing a connection between the last half of v. 11 and v. 14. God so clearly wants our love, respect, and reverence. It is so clear to me that God is Creator (among many other things) that I cannot understand why others don't understand what I read in the same way that I understand it. And then, when asked to explain it to them, it's near impossible -- it's like trying to describe the taste of water or the color of air. We are created with a desire in our hearts to understand God, given a "foggy knowledge" of "now" and "later," but we are also created to have some dependence upon God -- this is faith. To deny the need for faith in our lives is to not fully understand or appreciate how we have been created, in my limited understanding. God will receive glory in all things, and our dependence upon Him gives Him the spotlight on center stage to do just that -- be glorified in and through us.

Wow. How is it that I've read this passage before but never understood it this way?!?

Out of Curiosity...

I really enjoy figuring out where people are from who happen to read my blog, be it a one-time deal or a repeat offense, er, I mean, occurance, haha...

So I want to hear from you, the Readership! If you dare to be so bold, answer a few questions for me:

1) How did you find my blog?
2) Where are you from (you can generalize if you're one of those types who thinks you'll be stalked and murdered for revealing the town, city, and/or state in which you really live)?
3) What do you take away from reading this blog?

There are some blogs I read because I feel very connected to their struggles. Others share my faith. Others make me pee because I laugh so hard, and I know I can always count on them to give me a boost on days when I'm desperately needing laughter. I know no one (besides me, sometimes) appreciates a writing assignment, but I just like to hear from people sometimes! If you can't leave a comment on this site, try my MySpace page.

Hope to hear from some of you soon!

Article: "When A Baby Is Destined To Die"

I just read this on MSNBC.com and haven't cried that hard in a long time. Wow. So much strength and beauty in that story, and God so clearly evident as well.

For those parents who go through the loss of a child like that, I can't even know what to tell you. I won't pretend to have sage words of wisdom just because I've been through personal loss of my own. All I could ever muster up is to say how sorry I am that things like this happen, and that you are not alone, although you might feel that way.

If you've got your Kleenex ready, click on the title of the blog to read the article...