Thanks for lending me your opinions, everyone. (And by the way, HI, CATHY!) You know, it just occurred to me that the greeting picture does not have to be my face. It could be a picture of anything...as long as I can figure out how to move that Archive box down, but that's a job for another day. I'm exhausted.

The time change has not been kind to our family, and all this messing with the blog late at night has not helped me get my hour of sleep back. Last night, although the girls went to bed at their normal bedtime, Liberty and Mercy were still awake and giggling to each other at 11pm. So today, I instituted the STATE OF EMERGENCY NO NAP DAY. We started off the day right by leaving a fun voicemail for Daddy, then we ate breakfast, cleaned up together, worked out with my pilates video together (kind of), piled up cushions in the middle of the living room and then ran from the opposite wall and belly-flopped onto the cushions. I was surprised at how amazingly good it felt to do that myself. One time I accidentally flipped head-first over the cushions, and the giggling that followed released a lot of stress I've been allowing to build up. Which reminds me, I need to go to bed.

But first I want to finish telling you about our day, because it was just that wonderful, it needs to be shared.

We ate leftover asparagus and potatoes for lunch. I just nuked the bowl full of greens and the three of us each grabbed a fork and shared the bowl. My soul felt good watching my girls dig into the new (to us) vegetable with me and enjoying it. Then we went to the doctor's office where we discovered Mercy has an ear infection (and I'm wondering if I may be working on one, too, because my left ear hurts drastically!) Afterwards, we drove to Wal*Mart to pick up Mercy's Amoxicillin, a case of Aquafina, and new boxers for Jeremy. (You hear that, Jeremy? I found your ever elusive "favorite" boxers, so when you come home, you can be super happy with your underpants! What better way to entice you home, yes?)

On our way back to the apartment, it was revealed to me that our local seasonal ice cream store was once again open for business! I debated quickly. On the one hand, ice cream is not on the healthy foods list that I keep in my head. On the other hand, I've done an amazing job of not indulging in any of my old habits this past week and a half. (Thank You, God.) On the one hand, I don't want to ruin all of my hard work. On the other hand, this is not a "diet," it's a lifestyle, and it's flexible; one ice cream is not a crime for me. On the one hand, will I be able to stop at just one ice cream? You would not believe how painstakingly I researched the pros and cons of this decision. On the other hand, it's a gorgeous, warm, sunny day (and I heard that snow is in the forecast in a few days) so I decided to go, but go as the new Missy, not the old uncontrollable me. I ordered a small vanilla yogurt and requested three dishes. The girls and I split the treat. Aren't you proud of me? I was.

And then I added peanut butter and marshmallow toppings.

Because the sun was shining.

You know?

But the best part for me was realizing that those few bites satisfied me. I didn't have a wild, uncontrollable craving for more. (Please read that last sentence in a tone of wonderment.) I'm actually enjoying my self-imposed "healthy" lifestyle, and I didn't care about the ice cream. I tasted freedom, freedom from the bondage of food, and it tasted good.

We also stopped at the library and paid my over-due fine. Then we picked out Sesame Street's "Do The Alphabet" video and "Dance Along" video, and I got the last two books in the Welcome To Partonville (Dear Dorothy) series that I've been reading. And by the way, I HIGHLY recommend this series. It's by Charlene Ann Baumbich. Read it! You won't regret it.

The girls watched the alphabet video while I made Chicken Stirfry. I'll tell you all about that later. Then we hung out at the park making sand castles with our buckets and shovels. (Grandpa and Nonna, those are the best things you have ever sent -- besides the dress-up clothes.) I single-handedly confronted an evil gang of teenage boys in souped-up cars who were racing around the parking lot, and later when the police asked me to describe them, all I could remember was "three of them had dark hair." Sigh. I guess my spy skills have gone downhill, and just when I finally get to use them!

Bathtime followed, then cuddling my clean-smelling little girls and reading bedtime stories, tucking them in, and seeing with my own two eyes the fact that NO NAP DAY really works! Liberty never attempted a bedroom break. There were no claims of thirst, or needs to go potty. The decibel-level in the bedroom remained at zero.

Amazing!

Well, what do you know? I really did figure it out! But now that I've suddenly realized my headshot will greet me everytime I view my page, the thrill of victory has quickly worn off. Here are three possibilities for the greeting face. Please to be telling me which one I should use?

Number one:



Number two:



Number three:

Okay, I think I've gotten everything except the fake picture taken care of. Hooray for me!!!

Tiffany and Debbie, you offered, so here's my plea (and your chance at being a heroine!!!) (I feel like that word should be spelled differently, although, if you fix my photo problem, I will love you as though I were addicted to you.)

The instructions tell me that I need to change the image url "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg89p9fJw4dsxL6y_WyEY-ky8y7LweemZHaARCVGYhaB-4ep1eYCiSRdsxLjjCI_uBQ7Jhs2X9yJUdNEBwmYghAe9d1Z9tIOgs4PGoxfApf5M43ehPZmqLXSgyyOwPMfAoZQg1fp5H6ytY/s1600/main-img.jpg" with the Image URL I want to have.

Here is the image I want to have:



OH MY GOODNESS! I think I may have just stumbled upon the solution to my migraine! Let me publish this post, and then see if I have figured it out. If you do NOT see a change to that blonde girl, you will know that instead of stumbling on the solution, I really just stumbled, and you will need to send bandaids.

Obviously, I'm making some changes to my blog.

Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to get that fake picture off yet, but it's three in the morning, and I'm really, REALLY tired. HTML is not my love language!

I'll try again when I have time to work out all the little kinks. If anyone can tell me more about HTML and wants to help out a friend in need, contact me please!

The recurring theme around this blog seems to be food right now. I've mentioned a few times that we are slowly moving towards a healthier lifestyle, and this week, I took a GIANT step.

My menu for the week and my grocery list were made up of items that were either completely whole - meaning only one ingredient like green peppers - or just a few ingredients all of which I understood to be food items, not chemicals. And something I learned from Calle: not one of my purchased items contained high fructose corn syrup!

When I asked for blogging help a week or so ago, Suanna suggested that I post a menu or a recipe. So, Suanna, this is for you! Thanks for lending me an idea.

Tonight - Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches (thinly sliced sirloin, chopped veggies, cheese, on hoagie buns), Whole Pears

Sunday - Turkey (think Thanksgiving), Rosemary Potatoes (sliced potatoes lightly tossed with olive oil and sprinkled with rosemary and salt, then baked -- my sister Charity's recipe), Citrus Asparagus (BooMama's recipe)

Monday - Apple Burgers (Calle's recipe -- I'll let you know how they turn out), Mashed Potatoes, Leftover Asparagus

Tuesday - Chicken Stirfry (Another recipe from Calle, and if I remember, I'll tell you about that one too after we try it), Rice, Berry Muffins, Pears (Okay, I'll admit it, the berry muffins are a "just add water" mix that I bought several weeks ago. We're finishing off what's left in the house that isn't all natural.)

Wednesday - Eat at church (Hallelujah! Maybe they'll have something fattening!)

Thursday - Tacos, Salad (My favorite meal ever!)

Friday - Pizza Quesadillas, Salad, Kiwi (My mom created the idea of Pizza Quesadillas years ago, and everyone I've ever served it to, loves it -- one tortilla shell, leftover from taco night, sprinkled with shredded cheese, favorite pizza toppings added, a little more cheese on top, then second tortilla shell sandwiches it off. Bake in the oven until cheese is melty and tortilla shells are crisp -- for me that's around 10 minutes at 400. Cut into triangles and serve as pizza slices. Jeremy likes to dip his into pizza sauce. I like to smear sour cream and salsa on mine.) Salad, Kiwi.

I'm very excited about this week. I'm hoping to prove to myself that I am capable of eating healthfully and still enjoying it. Also, I took a drastic step yesterday and poured out all drinks that did not pass inspection and tossed all food that did not pass inspection. (Thankfully, it was grocery day, so there wasn't much food left to toss. I kept the Doritos for Jeremy. Really, for Jeremy. But don't judge too harshly, there was only about a serving left in the bag anyway. A Missy-sized serving, not a label-sized serving. Just enough for Jeremy to enjoy polishing off.)

We spent today at Calle's house where our girls all played together and had great fun. The seven of us went on a walk to the nearby lake, navigated ourselves and our strollers through a giant puddle in the walk way and stopped on a small wooden-slatted bridge to watch the water whoosh its way along. We talked and laughed and our three-year-olds told "funny jokes" to each other that only the two of them understood. Calle and I grinned together, loving the fact that those two "get" each other's very unique sense of humor.


Calle offered to be my nutritionist and dietitian (is that the same thing?), so I'm going to be accountable to her for the food I eat and the exercise I do or don't get each day. I'm very thankful for that! Did I tell you that I've filled our refrigerator with only fresh, unprocessed fruits and veggies? (except for the carrots -- they've been peeled and chopped for me, otherwise I'd never take the time to eat them.)

My accountability call to Calle tomorrow is the only thing stopping me from having a plate of Cool Ranch Doritos right now, so apparently, it's working.

As you know, I've had a bit of a block in my brain. I think the everlasting winter had something to do with it, and the wait to hear about the house has also frustrated me -- which is silly because we knew when we put an offer in that it would take a while to get an answer.

But here are some recently developed items of interest.

It has been sunshining for several days in a row, and our Mud Puddle has finally surfaced! Later this week we are supposed to get rain, so I am trying my hardest to soak up every ounce of sun possible before then. The girls are attempting to soak up every ounce of mud.

As evidenced by [The Splash Stomping Video] & [The Muddy Boots Game Video].

Two of the liens on "our house" have been signed off on by two banks. They have agreed not to receive any money back from the sale of the house. Another offer has been placed on the home, and Jeremy and I now have to evaluate whether our next move should be to increase our offer to some unknown amount and hope it beats out the other one, or to walk away. We're talking to God about that, and waiting on the bank to tell us when our decision time will be.

Jeremy's traveling for the next two weeks, so I've lined up days of fun to keep us occupied and not missing Daddy so much. Today has been ENJOY THE SUNSHINE Day and Do ALL THE LAUNDRY Day. Two activities which are slightly incompatible. So far, I've succeeded in dashing inside to keep the washer and dryer busy, but I guess I'll just save the folding and putting away for when the sun goes down. After all, Jeremy won't be home to see the mountain of clean clothes developing on our bed.

I need some fiber to get this blog going again.

So I'll make some up. Um...

No, I'll let you guys make some up. Give me ideas! Give me questions! Give me something funny! Give me an H! Oh, sorry.

HELP!

Some of these I have posted on my Facebook status, but that is not something I can easily access and read to myself in the future. So I'm going to elaborate on them here.

1. Last week, the sun shone for two days in a row, and Liberty and I couldn't have been happier about it. I just had to go play in it. Liberty looked up at the sky and said, "Mommy! Look at that yellow circle in the sky. It looks just like a sun." Later on, we walked on some dry pavement to get to our car, and Liberty exclaimed in a worried voice, "Mommy! I'm stepping on something!" It took me a few seconds to realize she was referring to the dry ground and truly did not recognize it. I laughed out loud.

2. The girls received helium balloons for Valentines Day, and Liberty spent a good chunk of the day on Monday playing with them. She emptied the toy box (which is a cardboard box leftover from our move) and put the two balloons into the box, then she struggled to keep them inside while closing the flaps on the box. "I'm making a birthday present," she told me. Then she wrapped the box in several blankets and decorated it with beaded necklaces. When she had finally finished wrapping her present, she called her sister over. "Meecee Dane! It's party time! Here's your present!" Mercy came over and gleefully unwrapped the box. When the balloons popped up, Liberty jumped up and down clapping and squealing, and Mercy did the same. Then Liberty would repeat the process. Over and over all day, the two of them played "Birthday" with short breaks in between sessions. At one point, the balloons were being unruly and would not stay in the box long enough for the flaps to be closed on them. After yet another episode of the balloons jumping joyfully towards the ceiling, Liberty reprimanded them with a stern, "NO! IT'S NOT PARTY TIME, YET!"

3. Since we long for summer so much, I unpacked our sand buckets and beach paraphernalia, and the girls and I spent a happy forty-five minutes building snow castles around the outskirts of our patio. Liberty even found a leaf leftover from the fall and stuck it stem-first into the top of her castle. We had an amazingly great time laughing and building together.

4. Mercy Jane tried to take her helium balloon for a walk in the baby stroller, but surprisingly enough, that balloon just wouldn't sit still (ADHD?). Poor Mercy tried and tried to go for a walk, but never got beyond a step or two before having to sit that balloon back down in its seat and shake her finger at it while saying "Noo-noo." I think I quit breathing for a few seconds from laughing so hard!

5. Liberty insists on being called by her first and middle names. She calls herself Yibby Gace and corrects me if I introduce her to someone using only her first name. She also corrects me if I use only Mercy's first name.

6. I think my favorite item of all is the fact that Liberty narrates herself as she goes throughout her days. For example, this morning, I heard Liberty telling her imaginary audience, "One day, Yibby Gace talked to her mommy and said..." then she approached me and asked, "May I have a drink, please?" While I was in the process of answering yes, she turned back to her audience, "And her mommy said yes! So Yibby Gace went to the kitchen..." She narrates most of the day, and it cracks me up! I hope she never stops. Of course, her college roommates might want to request a different room assignment, but oh my goodness the hilarity!

7. Mercy is talking now. Granted, most of the time I have no clue what she is saying, but it is unmistakable that she is using real English words. She'll repeat any word you ask her to say, and a month or so ago, Daddy was playing the "Can You Say ________?" Game where he comes up with a fun word to say, and Mercy repeats it. She was trucking right along, repeating every word he came up with including the big ones like rhinoceros without hesitation when Daddy pulled out "Can you say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?" Mercy paused just a slight second, and then she looked him straight in the eye. "No," she stated truthfully. Oh, how we laughed!

Jeremy and I have decided to change our lifestyle. We joined a gym (I finished my second workout tonight), and we are working on reinventing what we eat. We started by counting calories - Jeremy has a LoseIt! app on his phone, and I have been using livestrong.com to help me track my eating and exercising habits.

Interestingly enough, several incidents in our lives over the past few months have pointed us in the direction of whole foods, and while we are not all the way on board with that idea yet, we want to be. We're still in the information gathering stage (about whole food eating) at this point, and in the meantime, we will continue counting calories.

I started counting calories yesterday, and over shot my goal by about 150. Not bad, I congratulated myself, until the nighttime snackies attacked me. I valiantly fought a mental battle of will-power, giving myself pep talks that the Superbowl coaches would have paid money to hear. I went to bed having WON THE VICTORY, and I dreamed about food most of the night.

Today, I beat my goal by about 700, and in an effort to avoid the nighttime snackies, I went to the gym. Go me! Now, it is almost 10 pm, and I'm not hungry. Yet. I'd better get to bed before the snackies find me, though.

Good night, all!

I find my mind wandering many times during the days and nights to what I've optimistically been calling "our house." I pick out and discard paint colors and furniture. I plan parties right down to the tiniest details. I see the girls RUNNING FULL SPEED through the rooms and hear them giggling together. Then I have to remember, all of this might not happen. Just wait.

Wait? Are you kidding me? I can wait -- because I'm forced to -- and I can choose to have a good attitude about it, but what in the world does patient waiting look like?

I've got no clue.

I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but a tiny bit of dreaming is fun, you know? So dream a little dream with me.

From my last two posts, you can tell that I am in desperate need of inspiration, and that is why I have borrowed an idea from my friend Tiffany. It goes like this.

I AM - waiting. For summer, for a house, for the flu to leave our family, for Jeremy to get home from work. And now I have that song While I'm Waiting in my head.

I HAVE - tons of pictures on my camera that I keep struggling to get onto the computer. This should not be so hard, really!

I WISH - I could go running right this second. In the sunshine. Where is it?

I WANT - to eat tacos for supper tonight, and we have all the ingredients! Guess what we're having!

I FEAR - that the sun will never shine again. Or that when it does, it will last only a day before the next snowfall. I believe this is a reasonable fear.

I HEAR - a fabric duck quacking and Mr. Mumford turning the entire world into quacking people.

I WONDER - when Liberty and I will be able to breathe through our noses again?

I REGRET - not buying chocolate chips the last time I was at the grocery store.

I LOVE - running barefoot through soft green grass while the SUN SHINES on my face and the WARM wind tosses my hair behind me.

I ALWAYS - Um, after much thought, I realize that I ALWAYS lack consistency. It has something to do with not enjoying boredom.

I USUALLY - read books, but the plots all seem the same to me right now. Can anyone recommend something wonderful to read?

I AM NOT - well. Really, you can ask Jeremy.

I SING - Happy Birthday off key quite horribly. You should come hear me sometime.

I RARELY - pick my nose. Oh, that should go in the I NEVER category. Ooops.

I NEVER - (and what do you know, there actually is a NEVER category.) I never knew blogging could be so complicated.

I CRY - What? That's a complete sentence all by itself. I suppose they want me to tell you what I cry about or how often I cry. Let's see, well, I teared up last night as I was writing our 2009 recap because I checked my blog to see what we did last year, and I found this post.

I AM NOT ALWAYS - this random or this disgusted with the sun.

I NEED - SUNSHINE!!! Do you hear me? SUNSHINE!!!

I just finished typing up the 2009 recap of our lives that I planned to mail out in December as a Christmas letter. Go me. Now if I ever actually mail it, that will be an accomplishment.

I'm doped up on Thera Flu right now, and my neck muscles are giving up on me. Poor Liberty is fighting a fever as we speak and coughing a sad, pathetic-sounding cough of misery. Of course this malady did not stop her from pouring water all over my living room floor today, although it is currently preventing her from sleeping.

Thera Flu is my friend.

I probably should refrain from typing after medicating, but there's something in me that gains comfort from blogging. But not as much comfort as my pillow would give me. Good night!

So. I've been sick. Correction: I am sick. The flu or some other sort of hideous little germ has invaded my territory, and I've been doing many nasty things trying to remove it. And now, here I am typing my little heart away while on medication.

This might be an interesting post.

Or it might not, seeing as how I really have nothing to say. Usually when I have nothing to say, I avoid typing about it, but tonight, I am bored and tired and slightly off in the head, AND I CAN'T SPELL. Not being able to spell is frustrating. Every three keystrokes I have to backspace and start over.

What can I tell you about?

I could tell you about Liberty's newest bedtime routine which involves thinking up every excuse known to mankind and calling it through the bedroom door in an attempt to avoid sleeping. Tonight's excuses came like this:

"Mommy, I had a bad dream about bears and monsters. Please pray about it."

"Mommy, I'm thirsty. I need a drink please."

"Mommy, I spilled water on the floor. I need a towel please."

"Mommy, I need to go potty."

"Mommy, Mercy's hitting her sister."

For the record, Mercy's crib is across the room, and she cannot get out of it. In order for her to be hitting her sister, her sister would have to be out of her own bed and standing within a baby-arm's reach of the crib.

"Mommy, I can't find my toy doggy."

"Mommy, I miss you. I need a hug please. A really big hug."

"Mommy, can we go to church today?"

"Mommy, we're going to have a party at the library!"

Or I could tell you about... Um, about... Well, I can't think of anything riveting.

EXCEPT THAT SURVIVOR'S ON TOMORROW!!! And I will get to see it on Friday! OOOooh I can't wait!

Okay, that's enough backspacing for tonight. Sleep tight, and don't breathe in any germs.

This is a little personal...well, maybe a lot personal, and I'm not sure about sharing it. But, I thought it might be helpful to someone. An excerpt from my prayer journal:

God, I have been wallowing in something close to depression, and I don't know why. The winter blues? A lack of sleep? Impatience about a home? Poor diet? Whatever is causing it, will You please show me how to avoid it?

Also, the Truth is: my emotions do not have to follow my circumstances. My emotions should follow You, my stable, unchanging God. So how can they do that? First, I need to know where You are and Who You are. That can be found in Your Word. Next, I need to see reality instead of my perceptions.

Reality - What my life is really like:
1. I am a friend of God, rescued from Hell and on my way to Heaven!
2. I am married to an amazingly understanding and godly man who loves me exclusively and thinks I'm pretty and wonderful.
3. I am the mom of two fun, special, loving, little girls who also think very highly of me (at least for now).
4. I am comfortable, healthy, taken care of, and I need to be thankful.

I think I have forgotten my purpose, and that is causing my discouragement. So what is my one main purpose? POINT TO GOD.

How can I fulfill that purpose on a daily basis?
1. Have a plan for the day and carry it out.
2. Teach my girls about life.
3. Eat right, not whatever I happen to be craving at the time.
4. Exercise daily, not whenever I feel like it.
5. Memorize Scripture so that my mind dwells on Truth instead of feelings.
6. Pray purposefully for a deeper relationship with God, and for others' needs.
6. Take note of what gets accomplished. (So that at the end of the day, even if the living room is completely trashed, I can say to myself, this room has been totally cleaned three times today. I don't need to feel like a failure because of its current state.)

So.

Today is day one of me being in charge of my emotions instead of my emotions being in charge of me. It has been purposeful and refreshing. Thanks to God!

I went to bed very early last night to catch up on sleep. I woke up before the girls and spent some time with God. I made a list of specific items I wanted to get done today. At breakfast time, although I was not hungry, I forced myself to eat a banana. At snack time, although I wanted something else, I chose to eat 20 blueberries. At lunch time, although, again I wanted something else, I chose to eat leftover tilapia, peas and potatoes. I worked on memorizing the next section of Ephesians chapter four, and Liberty heard me quoting it to myself and announced, "Mommy, I'm going to say Romans 3:23!" She proceeded to say it word perfectly, then we worked on Romans 6:23 together until she told me firmly, "Mommy, I think that's enough for today." And that was that. I followed along with my palates video and even survived a kamikaze Mercy Jane attack when she jumped off of the rocking chair and onto my tummy, giggling maniacally the entire time.

There has been no sunshine today. AGAIN. And I will not be able to accomplish all of the items on my to do list today, but I have chosen to be thankful for my blessings and let God control my emotions. Hooray!

I will apologize immediately for keeping you waiting on the rest of the story. The cliff-hanger was caused by two main reasons. Well, one main reason and one secondary reason. First, I waited on our realtor for some more information before blogging. (Although I listed it first, that was actually the secondary reason.) The main reason is Jeremy and I have stayed up until around two am most mornings, watching the first and second seasons of The Mole. This activity drained my brain of any creative writing skills it may contain, and any spare brain cells unoccupied by day-to-day living spent their time pondering the question, WHO IS THE MOLE?

And now I must follow a tangent in my brain in order to tell you...well, I cannot tell you what I intended to, because I typed it all out and realized that if anyone wanted to watch season one on Hulu, I would be ruining the ending for you by telling you what I wanted to say.

Now the second season is a different story. I can say what I want without ruining anything, and I HAVE to say this because I have to get my brag on. I totally called that one! From the very second episode, I called it! Go me! And I did it without any of the producers so-called clues. Clues? Yeah, right. Those were not clues. Jeremy and I were so frustrated during the show because we couldn't pick up on any of the clues, but when they revealed the clues at the end of the season, we did not feel badly at all. Those were not clues!


And now back to our regularly scheduled post.


Monday came and went with no further knowledge about where to send our offer. Tuesday came and went. Wednesday came, and my phone rang. Our realtor's name showed on the screen, and I picked it up, "Hi!"

"You guys have been praying hard, haven't you?" she answered with an odd sound in her voice.

I smiled then joked back, "I like the sound of that opening line; tell me more!"

"You're not going to believe this," I could hear the reciprocating smile in her voice, "or maybe you will! I just got an email from the foreclosure office about that house. It goes like this:

You have been selected as the Agent for the Short Sale property at [the yellow house]. Please check your Workflow for any tasks assigned to you for this property. Thank you.

I hesitated, wanting to share in her joy, but not knowing exactly what that message meant.

Our realtor explained with excitement, "This email came to our office out of the blue, and I was copied on it because of my position within our agency. The foreclosure office had no idea that we were searching for that house. They had no idea that we had an offer on that house. In fact, after I did a little digging, I found out that if standard procedures had been followed explicitly, our office would not have been given this listing." When my "wow" sounded weak to her, she further explained. "This means that we know where to send the offer. It means that we have direct contact with the decision makers, and that we can dialogue freely with them."

"YES!!!" This time my answer came strongly!

"But Missy, you still don't understand," she continued earnestly, "In all the time I've been working here, I have never seen this happen, and in fact, if everything had gone the way it was planned to by the company, it would not have happened. This is definitely something that God did!"

We continued talking, marveling at the odd twists this house had gone through to get to where it was right now, and finally I asked a favor, "Would you mind sending me that email? If God does give us this house, I want to be sure that we remember what He did."

She sent the email with this note attached:

Please find attached the message I rec'd from [the bank]. This is the first time in my 5 years in real estate that we have rec'd a message like this! We've gone months with no communication from the bank and this just came in out of the blue. They were not even listed as the #1 bank in line for this mortgage. Pretty much unheard of......please keep praying!!!

I'll be praying as well!

Jeremy and I have submitted our offer, and now we wait for all of the lien holders and mortgage holders (there are several) to decide whether they will accept their losses and not ask for any money from the sale of this home or if they will reject the offer as too low because they will not be regaining any of the money that is due them.

Don't hold your breaths, everybody. This could take a long time...

But you can pray!

Also, I want to say, just because God has done this miraculous thing, it does not automatically mean that He plans to give us this house. I do not pretend to know what His plans are, but I do know one thing for sure: whatever they are, they are the best, and we will praise.

I do not need to tell you, do I, that the two of us prayed all through last week; actually, the four of us prayed because the girls have recently started asking God to give us a home and for wisdom about our home, too. Jeremy spent the week dreaming, describing and slowly dipping his toes back into the pool of reality, and I spent the week treading water in that realistic pool. Intrigued, yes. Wanting this to be Our House, yes. Hoping, no.

Last Saturday, Jeremy and I sat in the van and prayed again for wisdom while we waited for our realtor to unlocked the front doors of the yellow house. Then we walked through them. The pictures online had given me not even an inkling of what to expect. In fact, the pictures online had perpetuated my water-treading in the pool of There Is No Home For Us, but walking through those doors into the entryway and living room changed my perspective. Hope peeked through a tiny crack in the dry dirt floor of my dreams. I turned left and walked through the large archway into the nasty peach kitchen. Hope slipped her head above the crack so that she could get a good look at the kitchen and take note of what paint color might make those cabinets pop beautifully into view. I followed Jeremy through a second arched door into the dining room filled with windows, and hope's entire body jumped through the crack in order to stand firmly in the sunlight with me.

Jeremy and I looked at each other and smiled. We knew. Even if we had to compromise on most of the rest of the house, we knew. This was Home.

Jeremy, Hope and I joined hands and followed our realtor through the rest of the main floor. The laundry room had a mudroom large enough to accommodate a bench and coat/book-bag/shoe-collecting area. This is something that I have been wanting since I began dreaming of a house. The bedrooms told us exactly what role they would like to play in our family as we entered them. The one on the left side of the house would be an office and guest room. The front one on the right would be the girls' room. The back one on the right would be a playroom.

Upstairs, french doors led into the master suite. I actually don't remember much of the master suite except that the room was very large and contained several windows. The bathroom had enough room for a garden tub, but it was missing. The one thing I do remember was the large walk-in shower with double shower heads - another item on our dream list.

Because the home is in the process of foreclosure, it has been gutted by someone in order retrieve some of the value put into it. Many light fixtures are missing, and at least one bathroom sink that I can remember is gone. The flooring throughout most of the home will need to be replaced as we can afford it, but out of our entire dream list, the only two items not already in the home are a fireplace and a garden tub. Definitely things that we can compromise on or add in later.

The two of us did not say much while in the house other than asking questions of our realtor, but we made a lot of eye-contact. Each knew what the other was thinking. Six other homes on our list to-be-viewed that day forced us to keep our appointments, and Jeremy and I did not even discuss The House while driving to our other destinations. Another beautiful home on the list that day checked off most if not all of our dream list items, and Jeremy and I sat down at a local restaurant around two pm to eat lunch and talk.

In order to be fair to all houses involved, we set aside our feelings for the yellow house and created a pro/con list. Our choices were narrowed down to the house we wanted to build which incorporated almost all of our dream items and would eventually need a finished basement, the beautiful house on the cul-de-sac which incorporated a little more of our dream items and came completely ready with no later upgrades or work to be done, and The Yellow House which would require the most work (mainly decorative) to make it ours. Surprisingly enough, even with differing pros and cons for each house, the three were just about equal on our lists. We stopped to pray for the twelve-hundred-and-forty-second time that day, and when we raised our bowed heads and looked up at each other from across the table, we both knew. Together, we pushed the lists aside and said, "We only have passion about the yellow one."

We stared at each other, brains whirling. Slowly, peace and determination took over the thoughts. "Let's do it," I said firmly. "Let's go for it."

Jeremy continued searching my eyes, wanting to be sure I understood the risks involved in putting an offer down on the house. I understood his gaze and nodded. "Yeah, I know."

Because the house is only in the beginning of foreclosure, so many red-tape requirements come first. Additionally, the file for the house has been lost in the United States financial system somewhere, and no one has been able to locate it. If we were to put an offer on the house, that offer would float out in la-la land until someone somewhere saw it and put it together with the missing house file. Once it hit that house file, several mortgage companies would have to agree, come to terms with each other and respond. Our realtor told us the process could take more than a year before we even heard back that our offer had been received, not even accepted or rejected.

In June, Jeremy's relocation benefits will expire. Building a house takes three to four months, so if we start in February, we can be in the newly built house by June and still take advantage of our relocation package. But if we spend time waiting to hear back on the yellow house, and then find out our offer is rejected or that someone else has made a better offer (and someone else HAS made an offer, we just don't know any details about it), our window of building time will go past our relocation benefits expiration date.

We knew all of this, and yet God gave peace. Not only peace but readiness to take action and steadiness to wait it out. "Make the phone call," Jeremy said in his deep take-charge voice that I love.

I picked up the phone and called our realtor. "We want to make an offer on the yellow house."

"Okay!" she knew already, too. "I'll do some research and get back to you on Monday."

To Be Continued...

Since moving to Indiana, Jeremy and I have spent most of our Saturdays either touring the insides of houses to buy, or driving around aimlessly, searching for land to build a house on. When our original six month lease on our apartment expired we did a LOT of praying. What in the world are we supposed to do, God? We looked for nice houses to rent, but none met our standards. Eventually, we signed another six month lease, not because we wanted to, but because we had no idea what else to do and time to make a decision had run out.

With the immediate rental decision made, we went back to focusing on permanent arrangements for our family. Buy or build? Build or buy? We finally settled on a small plot of land and a floorplan that we both are happy with, but still we hesitated to make the final decision to build. Something held us back. Something that neither of us could define. Just a lack of...something. (I actually tried to put a definite word into that sentence, but nothing I came up with was correct.)

Two Saturdays ago, on our way home from The Place With All The Meat, we took a wrong turn and ended up driving along a country road with beautiful homes dotted here and there. It wasn't unusual for the bright yellow FOR SALE sign by the side of the road to catch my attention, because whenever we drive our eyes remain trained to the front edge of yards searching for those signs that could indicate Home! Your Home Is Here. But what was unusual was my lack of interest. I didn't even point the sign out to Jeremy. The almost-decision to build combined with the lack of believing that Our House could really be out there had caused me to remain silent. We've looked at too many houses that did not like us or that we did not like. Houses and I speak the same language. We bond. Even the most deplorable of homes could sing and dance if given the appropriate love and attention, and I've been disheartened by all the housely rejection we have been going through. I stayed silent.

Jeremy spoke up. "See that sign?"

I nodded and followed the nearby driveway with my eyes, trying to glimpse the advertised house. The gravel extended more than a few hundred feet and divided the yards of two different homes. The brown house sat confidently in full view of the road, but only a corner of the yellow house showed itself from behind the trees.

"I wonder which house is for sale," Jeremy mused, "Wanna drive back and see?"

"Eh," I shrugged, intrigued more by the potential for adventure than by any hopefulness of finding Our House.

Jeremy checked his rear view mirror, then put Wynni in reverse and approached the driveway. All the way up the long drive we scanned the houses for clues that might show us which was on the market. We parked in the driveway of the brown house since it was first in line, and from the safety of our van we examined the yard, windows, front porch. Nothing told us that the home might be for sale, and I recommended that we leave before the owners came out to kick us off their property. As we turned around, Jeremy asked, "You want to check out the other house?"

"No, let's just go," I answered. The brown house had not inspired a feeling of home to me; I didn't expect anything more from the still hidden yellow house. We slowly headed back down the gravel drive, still wondering which home might be for sale.

Jeremy and I noticed the neighbor walking rapidly towards us at the same time. "Let's ask him," I suggested. Jeremy eyed the posture of the young man's advance and hesitated. "He doesn't look so happy to see us. Maybe we shouldn't stop to talk." He hesitated, his curiosity got the better of him, and he said, "Well, only if you do the asking. You're cuter." He winked at me.

Jeremy rolled his driver's side window down, and I leaned toward it and said in my nicest, politest voice, "Do you know which of these two homes is for sale?" at the same time that Mr. Neighbor puffed out his chest and said in a deep voice, "I'm a Marine. How can I help you?"

A tiny pause lingered while our words crossed each other in the air. Then the young Marine smiled and his chest became friendly-looking. "The yellow house is for sale. It's empty. You can go look in the windows if you'd like. I'm sorry for my big tough turkey act. The house you were just looking at is my dad's house, and he's been in the hospital for the past three weeks due to lung cancer. He had his lung removed this morning, so I've just come from the hospital. It startled me to see someone staring at his house." He smiled again.

Jeremy and I asked a few intelligent questions about the history of the yellow house and about the neighborhood. Our Marine eagerly gave us a lot of helpful information, and told us the Story of the House, and believe me, it is a Story. Just the way I like it with love and tragedy, heroes and villains and a bitter-sweet ending. Without even seeing the house, my heart began leaning towards it.

After a long conversation, our Marine returned to his own home near to his father's, and Jeremy and I turned Wynni around, pointing her towards the corner of the yellow house. We proceeded along the gravel way, passed the corner of the house and entered the circle driveway in front. Triple archways on the front porch drew our eyes upward and highlighted the dome-shaped window above the double front doors. A chandelier inside the house sparkled in the light. Jeremy gasped. "This is our house. Look, Missy! Look! It's our house!"

I understood his enthusiasm because in all of our dreaming, he had described this entryway right down to the visible chandelier many times in the past. I understood his enthusiasm, but I didn't share it, not completely anyway. His grand entryway is not necessarily my ideal. But, I noticed, with a few tweaks here and there... Yes, the entryway was acceptable, even desirable, or could be easily. After the tweaks, I could readily see the two of us sitting on the front porch, watching our girls playing in the yard. And speaking of the yard, I shifted my gaze to the surrounding land. Mature trees of various kinds pushed their way skyward here and there around the yard. A double-line of possibly fifteen-to-twenty-year-old trees marched along the northern edge of the property, the same trees that had blocked our view from the road. While Jeremy was tall enough to peek into all the windows, I was not, so I contented myself with walking around the perimeter and admiring the view in all directions. The yard felt like home. What a wonderful feeling!

Since our two girls had stayed buckled in the van, I returned quickly from my sojourn around the house. Jeremy took longer, peering into every window on the main level and into the basement. He came back energized. "Missy!" he practically shouted, "This is It. This is Our House!" His boyish, happy grin that I have missed for almost a year exploded from his face. "This is it!"

All the way home, and late into the night, he described what he had seen from the windows. He tried to get me to comprehend the layout, the wall colors, the kitchen cabinets. I loved his happiness; I loved his excitement; I loved the switch in our roles. Normally, I am the happy, dreaming, excited one, and he is the cautious, wisdom-filled, (dare I say it) GRUMPY one. (He would call it realistic.)

For some reason, I could not get my heart to hope. Yes, the yard caused me yearning, but I kept a purposeful clamp on it. The inside of the house would probably not tell me it was my home. We made an appointment to see it the following weekend.

(To Be Continued...)

We seem to be making headway in the belonging aspect of living in Indiana. I mentioned a few posts ago that we met up with three different people we knew in Walmart. That felt good. Coming from such a small town in Iowa where we knew just about everyone, the lack of stopping to talk during a Walmart trip has been a drastic change – a lonely change. Another drastic change was the fact that we used to get our meat from a local butcher shop. The missing butcher shop here did not affect me so much, but a small part of Jeremy’s manliness was taken when he found he did not have a place to get Manly Meat. At a recent Mom’s Get Together, I was told of a butcher shop nearby that sounded amazing. I knew immediately that if I could get Jeremy to that shop, he would feel instantly better about Indiana as a whole.

We drove there this past weekend and spent a couple HOURS examining all that was available in the specialty store. I bought some honey that had been collected just down the road, and Jeremy filled our freezer with Meat. On our way home, Jeremy couldn't express how wonderful it felt to have a Place Of Meat to rely on. What wonders Meat can do for a man’s outlook! It’s funny to me.

The girls and I on the other hand have been focusing on making relationships with other moms and kids. On Monday, we went to my friend Calle’s house where Liberty and Mercy played with Calle’s daughters – girls their own ages – while Calle and I hung out together chatting and laughing and having a grand time. On Tuesday, we three stayed home from Mercy’s Storytime at the library because Liberty’s milk allergy was causing her problems. On Wednesday, we attended Liberty’s Storytime (this is a new time slot for us), and I was able to introduce myself and have a nice conversation with another mom. That was very encouraging for me. In the afternoon, Calle and her girls came over for some fun, and that evening, I attended my Ladies’ Bible Study and sat next to a lady who I’ve spoken to slightly before. We got to know each other a little better, and she invited our family to her family’s house next Saturday for supper! She and her husband LOVE to play GAMES!!!! Another huge missing ingredient in our belonging feeling has been that we haven’t met many people who love to play games. I cannot wait for this evening! On Thursday (today), the girls and I went to the YMCA for an exercise class. This is the second class we’ve attended, and this time I felt more familiar. I introduced myself to a mom who I had seen at the library before, and we ended up going to McDonald’s Playland with our girls after the class. (You know what kind of restaurant would make a KILLING? A cozy café that serves healthy, hearty food and has an indoor playground. I ought to start one.) We also both signed up for something called the Mom Squad (the name just attracts me) which is a bunch of moms and kids who meet once or twice a week to play and talk. There’s no schedule or activities planned, although some days they meet at a park or a pool. Their next meeting is on Monday, and Ellie and I (my new friend from the Y) and her daughter and my daughter are going to attend for the first time together. Tomorrow (Friday), another friend I’ve made from church is coming over to our house with her little son to play with us, and Saturday evening Jeremy and I and our girls are going to the house of someone in our Sunday School class for a Mexican-themed class party.

Which reminds me, Calle was going to give me her recipe for White Chicken Chili. I’ll have to call her.

See? Belonging!

My pastor has started a series called "One Month To Live," and I've been doing a lot of soul-searching about that topic. If I knew I had one month left to live, what would I do differently? What would my priorities become? What actions and reactions would I monitor closely?

I started by examining my daily routine filled with diaper changing, nose wiping, silly giggling, book reading, house cleaning, potty training, no-no repeating, meal preparing, toy-share monitoring, husband feeding, friendly phone and email conversing, nap-time enforcing, and Jeremy conversing and cuddling. I assumed I would need to drastically change my way of life if I knew I was about to die, but after listing my daily activities, I realized not much could be changed without someone in my immediate family suffering because of it. The minute details of my day are IMPORTANT. Bottom wiping? That's serious business. No-no repeating? At least two future contributors to the world are becoming slightly more responsible and worth-while (hopefully) because of the training they are currently receiving.

Realizing that my activities could not be changed, I decided to focus on my attitude. Admittedly, there are times (especially early in the morning, or in the middle of the night) when my attitude does not point others to God. Most of the time, no one around me realizes it because I keep it to myself, but even that internal "I'd rather be sleeping" attitude is not the way I want to exit this world and stand before my amazing Lord. Something to work on.

I moved on to the various relationships in my life. There are people who refuse to speak to me, and there are other people who speak to me, but the relationship is gone or broken. I considered those situations, thinking, this definitely is an area that I should work on. Ephesians 4:3 says "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Hebrews 12:14a says "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy..." I thought about it: what could I do to build or repair relationships with those people? And I discovered a concept that I did not expect to find. Freedom.

I have tried to rebuild or repair those relationships over a period of time, and my efforts have either been rebuffed or the bridges attempted have been set on fire from the other side through lies and manipulation when my back was turned. That sounds dramatic and finger-pointing, and I did not mean it that way, but the truth is, I have tried to live at peace, and even more -- to live together in love and joy. With my final month on earth, I do not need to work and work at a relationship that is not happening. That would be a foolish waste of time, but I should continue loving and extending grace in my heart.

I mentioned in a previous post that I am currently reading through the book of Jeremiah. Here was a guy who tried! And tried and tried and tried. He spoke the truth. He loved. He reached out. He cried over his people. But they would have none of it. When he stood before God, God did not berate him for the failed relationship. The parties responsible for that failure would be the parties who refused the Truth. Refused the Love.

Surprise entered my soul. Windows opened. Freedom walked in.

So far, I have learned two things:

1. My daily, sometimes boring, sometimes mundane, lots of times fun and just-plain-silly routine has vastly far-reaching results. Not a single action, attitude or facial expression is unimportant. I am fulfilling a mission!

2. "Make every effort..." means just that. God doesn't command the end result. He only commands the effort. There comes a time when the effort has been made. Keep an open heart, and drop the burden.

Did I say two?

3. If I had only one month to live, I would go to bed at the exact same time that Jeremy did every night. I would watch Star Wars with him whenever he wanted me to watch (unless I was feeding the kids or something equally important like reading a good book to myself or soaking in the tub.)

Hmm, maybe I should just stick with two!

I was going to end the post there, but another thought just presented itself: God doesn't tell us how much time we have left because He doesn't want us to burn ourselves out. If I knew I had one month left to live, I would spend every second possible with Jeremy, or on the phone with my relatives and friends saying goodbye and hopefully uttering amazing final words that could be quoted and passed down for generations to come! I would cut out my own needs like exercising or time alone to read or soak. I would do this because with only a month left, the need to be of sound mind would be less and less important. But God calls us to balance. Rejuvenation is an important part of an on-going life, and reading and bathtub soaking are an important part of my duty to remain balanced.

See? I should have been a salesman.

Our internet connection is down indefinitely. Oh the tragedy! In the meantime, if you are trying to contact me, please call. I will not receive emails for a while.

Oh, and you can pray some intercessory prayers on my behalf so that I survive this barren internetless wasteland in which I am living.

Jeremy just read this over my shoulder, and he suggested that I might enjoy my life in the real world where my two kids and husband live. :-) And I do...

It gives me something to blog about!

My Dad, the Dryer Whisperer, came to fix our broken dryer! Liberty helped.




Apparently, Grandpa made a big impression on Liberty. After my parents returned to their home, Daddy decided to check out the dryer, and Liberty informed him, "It's okay, Daddy. Let's wait for Grandpa. He can fix it." When Daddy informed her that he, too, was able to fix things, she shook her head. "No, it's okay, Daddy. We should wait for Grandpa. He can fix it."

In order to raise Liberty's estimation of her father, today I brought him a lamp with a burned out light bulb and made a big deal out of the fact that Daddy would fix it. Liberty followed me to Daddy with wonder in her eyes. Could Daddy really fix it?

Hooray! It's fixed! And Daddy is back to being her main hero...but Grandpa sure isn't far behind.

Liberty begs to go outside, but she never manages to stick with that thought all the way through the task of putting on her socks and boots and coat and hat and gloves. She gets halfway ready and then decides she wants to do something else.

So we ran races today. We started at the front door, and I yelled, "On your mark, get set, GO!" The girls took off down the hallway, rounded the corner into their bedroom, jumped onto and off of Liberty's bed, then raced back down the hall to tag my hand at the front door. Liberty won every time, of course, until Mercy realized the flawed pattern. Then she began stopping short at the bedroom door and turning around to scuttle gleefully back down the hall, giggling for all she was worth while Liberty continued on into the bedroom and over the bed. Amazingly, Liberty still beat her most of the time in spite of the shortcut. Usually, because Mercy giggled so much that she couldn't keep her balance and she would nosedive into the carpet, thus enabling Liberty to leap over her and finish the race while Mercy attempted to get back up.

During clean-up time, I collected a few of Liberty's Sunday School papers and held an impromptu Bible class. We learned all about the wise men following a star to find Jesus, and we discussed what Christmas is all about. Liberty regurgitated the lesson to Daddy later in the day, and she even made up a part about what sound camels make.

After the Bible class, we took the couch cushions and tossed them into a random pattern on the floor. The three of us then jumped from cushion to cushion yelling "Call Max" at every landing. I'm not sure who "Max" is or why he needed to be called, but it was meaningful and entertaining to the two youngest members of our band, so... CHEERS!

It reminded me of how my brothers and sisters and I would run in crazy circles outside whenever it rained and yell, "Call the fire! Call the fire!" I think that originally was "Call the fire department!" (because lightning had struck our house and it was on fire) but somewhere in there, one of the littlest kids couldn't say department, and we all ended up saying what the littlest one was saying.

There's a rabbit trail for you.

So this has turned into a somewhat random post, and that's okay with me. I'm feeling rather random today.

Liberty begged to "cosser" (color) her abc's, so I printed out a paper full of the alphabet, and she attacked it with her markers. I'm not sure why, but every time we do this, she only colors the letter O. We practiced the alphabet, and Mercy joined in vigorously. Have I mentioned that Mercy talks up a storm, now? Unfortunately, she's rather hard to hear since Liberty's usually around.

About an hour into naptime, I heard a small Liberty voice sing-songing, "Mommy, I made a mess. Mommy, I made a mess. Mommy, I made a mess." Turns out, she found a tube of Desitin and smeared it all over the walls and the doors and the carpet and her clothes and her barbie. When I opened the door, she immediately said, "Mommy, I'm very sorry for making this mess, and I want to clean it up, please. Please may I have a towel, please." I gave her a few diaper wipes, and she cleaned up every bit.

The neighbor kids came over. We played outside in the snow for about an hour before retreating into our apartment to build a fort with blankets and cushions. We popped popcorn because Liberty is convinced that popcorn warms her fingers and hot chocolate warms her toes. (I perpetuated the first myth, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse started the second.)

Oh, speaking of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse -- we watched a lot of it while we were at Grandpa and Grandma's for Christmas -- Liberty has taken to randomly shouting out, "Kick! (quick!) Everybody say, 'Oh, Toodles!'" And then she points to the invisible Toodles who has just arrived, and she says with relief, "I'm so glad you're here!"

And finally when Daddy came home, we sloshed our way to Pizza Hut, where the sound system played bouncy oldies tunes, and our two girls chair-danced throughout the entire meal.

The End.

Did I mention that I've had a terrible cold since we've been home? Well, since before we've been home because I got sick while I was still at my parents' house. Yesterday was plain awful.

"You can say that again."
"Yesterday was plain awful, but that's not now."
"That's then!"

(I couldn't resist.)

(Can anyone name that movie?)

Where was I? Oh yes, yesterday was plain awful. All the fluid in my head decided to expand, and my brain didn't like that idea very much. A migraine grabbed me fairly early in the day, but I still had motherly duties to perform. Somehow, the three of us girls survived, and thankfully when Daddy came home, he put me to bed.

This morning, I ate breakfast for the first time in a while. I was actually hungry! And then I buckled down to business: a load of laundry, a load of dishes, two girls into the bathtub, mop the kitchen floor, vacuum the living room and dining room, organize the bathroom drawers, lunch time, another load of laundry...

Phone call to Dad: "Hey, Dad, I'm standing next to the dryer. Can you tell me what that noise might be?"

"That high-pitched grinding squeal of protesting pain?"

"Yeah, that. And it's not Liberty or Mercy."

"Sounds like your idler's off and the drum belt is out of place." He should be called the Dryer Whisperer. "It will get louder and more incessant as it gets worse."

"Okay, thanks, I guess."

It got worse. A burning rubber smell now fills the air, and the dryer is out of commission.

But like I always say, "Better it than me!"

I do too always say that.

We're back home in Indiana, and you know what? It's starting to feel a little more homey. During our first Back-At-Home-Walmart-Run yesterday, we ran into three different people that we knew. That was happy!

The girls and I have picked up a bad cold, so we missed storytime at the library this morning. That was sad, but maybe Thursday we'll be able to go. That would be happy.

The new Ladies' Bible Study starts tomorrow night!!!! That's happy! I hope I'm not still sick enough that I have to miss it. That would be sad.

It's snowing again. That's happy. It has snowed every day, all day with little to no accumulation and boring gray skies ever since I can remember. That's sad.

I finished reading Isaiah during the Christmas holidays. That's happy! And God did a lot of talking to my heart. That's happy, too!

I started reading Jeremiah. Actually, I've only read the introduction page that comes before Jeremiah starts, and it really encouraged me to faithfully obey. It talked about how Jeremiah would not be considered a success by most standards (he spent most of his life being ignored and hated), but the fact that he faithfully obeyed God by communicating an unwelcome and unpopular message no matter what the results were or what it cost him personally means that God called him a success. That's happy.

Daddy just came home!!!! That's VERY happy!

On Saturday, Mom and I braved the crowds and made a few returns/exchanges, but mainly we talked and talked and talked. And slid and slid and slid through the snow. We finished our day with wonderfully warm chips and queso at a Mexican restaurant.

On Sunday, Jeremy and I caught up with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Teresa and their grandkids, Elizabeth and Andrew, who are extremely adorable. Andrew immediately decided he and I were best friends and he stayed in my lap to entertain me most of the time.

On Monday, my sister Faith and I went shopping together -- searching for the perfect pair of snow boots for her. Liberty and Mercy came along to help decide, and Liberty's shopping skills came out en masse. She tried on every shoe in the store, and even draped a few around her neck using the connecting string that stores put on their pairs of shoes. At one point, she had three glittery pairs around her neck and one pair of green frog rain boots on her feet, and several fellow-shoppers stopped to comment on her lovely accessories. On the way home, the weather was bad enough that we needed to avoid some of the back country roads, so we chose a few that neither of us were familiar with in the name of Adventure. Whenever we came to a crossroad, we asked, "Do you know where that direction will take us?" Whichever way we were most unfamiliar with is the way that we chose, and we made guesses ahead of time as to where we thought that road would put us. A few times we had to backtrack to get back onto unfamiliar territory. We had a lot of fun laughing our way home, and once we arrived, we parked in the garage with the heater running and talked for hours. The two little girls fell asleep in the backseat, so we carried them in and tucked them into bed. Then we started exploring the internet for colleges! Can you believe it? Colleges for my baby sister! This is not right.

Yesterday morning, we visited Great Grandma and Great Grandpa, who oohed and ahhed over the grandkids and dished all the family gossip. And BONUS! Great Uncle Jerry happened to be at their house, too!

Then last night, Dad and I watched McLintock! a John Wayne comedy. (I didn't know he made those.) Yes, I laughed in parts, but only because it was so ridiculous, and I'll tell you, if Dad hadn't been there, I would have changed the channel very quickly -- to something on HGTV!) But Dad and I had a lot of fun laughing at the movie, and Mom and I had a lot of fun when the DVR'd film abruptly shut off about ten minutes from the end of the show. Dad's outraged cries of "WHAT? WHAT? HOW COULD THEY DO THAT TO ME?!" and then his frantic mathematical figuring of the time limits and the settings on the DVR sent us into gales of laughter. Frankly, slightly relieved laughter that the movie had ended, I must admit, but the truth is, I had fun watching with Dad, and just the memory of the unexpected end is causing me to laugh right now.

This morning, Mom and I played Wii Sports (and I beat her at archery! But she insists that I tell you she beat me at the airplane Dogfight. So, yes, she beat me. No biggie...I'll get her in the rematch, you know.) Then we planned the New Year's Eve party together. Everyone attending will be divided into two teams, and we've got the Newspaper Game, a vigorous round of kid's Memory, Four On A Couch and several other specific games waiting in the wings. We'll keep score throughout the night, and finish off with some Wii challenges.

It's going to be a PAR-TAY! I can't wait.

Mainly because my Jeremy's coming back!!!! Hurry, Jeremy, hurry! Your girls miss you!

I was going to close this post there, but Dad just walked up and asked me to hand him his stocking which was sitting on the other side of the computer desk. "Be careful," he warned, "it's heavy."

"Oh, man!" I joked after lifting it. "Are you keeping tools in here?"

He grinned and set it down on the desk in front of me, then proceeded to remove items: a small toolbox, a set of allan wrenches, another set of allan wrenches...

Only my Dad! :-)

I am blogging to you from my parents' EXTREMELY SLOW dial-up connection. We drove to their home in Illinois on Christmas Eve, and we've been here ever since, enjoying the fun and relaxation.

I have BEATEN, CREAMED, PULVERIZED anyone who has dared to play against me in Scotland Yard. TWICE. Poor Jeremy just can't stand it. He's now creating excuses for why I have won.

Smirk.

Since Jeremy has to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, he and my youngest brother Pete drove back to Indiana in a snowstorm on Sunday. They're planning to return here on New Years Eve.

Last night at the supper table we all conspired to keep Uncle Zach from getting any food. He requested the large bowl of Taco Salad, and we passed it to him. He reached for the serving spoon just as Aunt Faith slipped the bowl and spoon out from under his hands and innocently served herself from it. The surprised look on Uncle Zach's face almost made my disinterested mask slip, and Mom snorted briefly then smothered it. Dad's eyes crinkled at the corners, and Liberty asked, "WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT HAPPENED?" She didn't want to be left out of the merriment.

Zach waited patiently until Faith served herself, then she slid the bowl over to him. I waited until his arms were extended before I pulled the bowl towards me, neatly avoiding his grasp. "Here you go, Liberty. Want some supper?" I said as I scooped salad onto her plate. Zach made a small choking sound in his throat. "Hey, what's going on here?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" Mom questioned innocently, but the laughter behind her voice gave her away. "Did you want some salad, Zach?"

"Yes," he stated with suspicion in his voice, "but every time I reach for the bowl someone else grabs it."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Zach, I didn't realize," I said as I pushed the bowl towards him. He reached for it a third time, and then I remembered that I had not put anything on my plate, yet. I pulled it back towards me, evading his reach once again. "Oh! I forgot to get any for myself. Hold on a minute," I said sweetly. By this time, everyone at the table had failed to keep their laughter to themselves. Mom struggled to breathe; Dad chuckled, Faith squeaked, and Liberty kept questioning loudly, "What happened? What happened? What happened? What happened?"

Zach folded his arms and said, "Yeah, you're ALL turds, I hope you know."

Right now, Uncle Zach is playing hide-and-seek with Liberty and making thumping noises so that she can find his hiding spot. Unfortunately, those thumping noises have scared her, and she came running to me, "I hear something, Mommy!" I had to explain to her that Uncle Zach was probably making those noises, and she took off excitedly again in the direction of the sounds.

I think she just now found him! I can hear deep ROARS and high-pitched, laughing screams from the dining room.

It's good to be home.

Last week, Santa came to storytime at the library, and Liberty has not stopped telling people about it yet. This is funny to me, since we haven't made a big deal out of him before this, but even funnier is the story of our time spent with him.

Picture, if you will, a tall, slender man with a badly-positioned, flat pillow shoved down the front of his Santa suit. The suit was obviously created for a more rotund figure than his, and he held the back of his pants up as he walked into the room.

"HO! HO! HO!" his deep bass voice boomed.

The kids went crazy! "SANTA'S HERE! SANTA'S HERE!"

Even Liberty jumped up and down. (Well, it doesn't take much for that to happen, I suppose.)

Santa sat down on a tiny plastic chair next to a bucket full of candy canes. "Who wants to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they want for Christmas?" he boomed.

Everyone but Liberty hesitated. She RAN from the far side of the room, took a flying leap and landed her bony rear onto his equally bony thigh. Even beneath the flowing beard his wince was detectable, and I winced along with him, knowing full well how those bones feel at that velocity.

"HOOOOOO, ho, ho," he groaned out, and some quiet laughter rippled through the moms present.

Liberty beamed at him. "HI! WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"

"Uh, I'm Santa Claus," Mr. Claus regained his composure. "What's your name?"

"I'M SIX!"

He looked confused, "You're six?" He glanced at me for confirmation. I shook my head. "She's three. She gets her numbers mixed up."

"Oh, you're three?"

She nodded.

"And what's your name, little girl."

"I'M YIBBY GACE, AND SHE'S A SISTER. SHE'S MEECEE DANE," she pointed back at Mercy.

Santa looked at me again. "Liberty Grace," I interpreted quietly.

"Liberty," he boomed, "tell Santa what you want for Christmas."

"A CANDY CANE!" she beamed up at him.

"A candy cane?" he repeated. "Is that all you want?"

"A CANDY CANE."

"What else do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?" he tried again.

She pointed emphatically to the bucket of candy canes sitting next to his chair. "A CANDY CANE, PLEASE!"

"Well, here, what if I give you one right now?" he said as he handed one to her.

"OH! SANK YOU VEE MUSS!" she exclaimed in wonder. (Thank you very much.)

"Now," Santa adjusted her on his lap, "what would you like Santa to bring you for Christmas, Liberty Grace?"

She paused and looked at his face, apparently weighing his offer. Finally, she decided he could bear the weight of her request, and she announced happily, "TWO CANDY CANES!"

Laughter rippled again. Try as he might, Santa could get no other requests from her lips. He handed her two candy canes and decided he'd fulfilled his duty. The rest of the children were not so easily satisfied. One little girl even requested a puppy. (This girl happened to be his daughter, and he groaned before trying to talk her out of it. "Don't you want something else?" But she remained adamant.)

When all the children had finished sitting on his lap, the librarian handed him Twas The Night Before Christmas and informed us in an excited voice that Santa was going to read to us. Obviously, Santa had not realized ahead of time that this was part of the deal, and his "HO! HO! HO!" as he accepted the book was not so merry. In fact, it conveyed apprehension.

I was amused. I sat on the floor, smiling to myself, but the situation got even better.

Santa struggled to read the words. He read along just fine until he got to a word that he didn't recognize, and then he made something up. I wish, OH HOW I WISH, I could remember all of the substitute words, but the one that stuck with me the most is this line,

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danc'd in their heads,
And Mama in her kitchen, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap

Frankly, I think it's more realistic, don't you? I know I'm always in the kitchen preparing for the holidays when everyone else is in bed.

BUT WAIT, IT GETS BETTER!

Having completed his duties, Santa gave a cheerful "Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!" to the room and stood to his feet. He unfolded his long, lanky frame from the tiny plastic chair and waved a white-gloved hand high in the air over his head. His red, velvety pants slipped down around his ankles, the pillow slipped out from under his shirt and hit the floor, and a collective sigh from the Mommas passed into the room.

"Whoops!" the librarian laughed as she collected the pillow and helped Santa pull up his pants. "Looks like Santa needs lots of cookies this Christmas, kids! Make sure you tell your mom and dad to let you leave plenty of cookies for Santa. He really needs them!"

We all laughed as Santa tightly gripped the waistband on his slacks, tucked the pillow under his arm, and headed for the door. "That darn Mrs. Claus," he muttered. "Always onto me about what I eat." He exited amid much applause.

Later he joined us (as a dad, not Santa Claus) and we learned that he had left his glasses behind since they didn't fit the theme of the costume.

That's why I still talk about the Santa visit, but Liberty just tells how she got TWO candy canes from Santa Claus.

I have a magically self-destructing house. Yes, I know there are little helpers named Liberty and Mercy who aid in the destruction, but there's more going on here than the usual messiness of a normal dwelling place.

For example: I did dishes just yesterday. Two dishwasher loads and one in-the-sink-by-hand load. Today? Magically, the sink and counter are over-flowing, and that's after the dishwasher load this morning.

The table? Yes, I vaccumed underneath it this morning after breakfast. I wiped it's surface down with a Clorox wipe. It sat beautifully waiting for the next meal to be served. And now? Now, spaghetti noodles litter the floor under and around it. Noodles that cannot simply be vaccumed away. Noodles that cling and require hands and knees on the floor and fingers to pry them loose from the carpet fibers they have been reuinited with after twenty years of laborious and determined searching.

My laundry hampers mock me. Overflowing with dirty clothes, even though I have washed and dried five loads in the past two days. It has to be magic, because I only wear one set of clothes each day. Jeremy only wears two sets of clothes each day. Mercy wears maybe three, and Liberty only twelve per day, so really, do the math. It's magic.

I'm ready to find a house that contains the opposite magic. One that resists stains even if your three-year-old purposely pours grape juice onto the beige carpeting. One that sanitizes dishes even as you are eating from them. One that washes, dries, irons and PUTS AWAY clothing immediately after the clothing is removed from a body.

Is that too much to ask? I don't think so.

Liberty has had only ONE accident all day today!

ONE!

Did you hear me?

Angels are singing. Oh wait, that may just be the Christmas song on the radio.

Either way, it's great with me!

Whew! I'm sitting at the computer surrounded by a destructed house, but it's a good destruction. Liberty woke up this morning at seven o'clock. I don't like those numbers. I tried to get her to go back to sleep until 8:30 which is our normal (somewhat) getting out of bed time, but she would have none of it. She was awake. She was hungry. She wanted an o-ola bar.

So I dragged myself out from under my cuddly comforter and away from my softly-sinking pillow. We got an o-ola bar (granola bar), and I explained to her how important today is.

Today is the day I have determined she WILL be potty-trained. (We've been trying for over a year, now.) Today is the day that I have in my possession Big Girl Panties which she will wear all day long. She picked out the most beautiful pair in the package of ten, and we started our journey. She confidently told me over and over that she would not potty in them. She would keep them dry. She would only potty in the toilet. She knew how to take care of them because she was a Big Girl.

The first spot appeared behind the rocking chair in the living room. New panties. The next spot appeared on the far side of the rocking chair. New panties. The third spot appeared IN MY BED and you know it was on my side, not Daddy's. New panties. The fourth spot showed up on the couch cushion. New panties. The fifth spot came during lunch. She crouched on her chair and told me urgently, "Mommy! I have to go to the bathroom! Uh-oh!" At least that one puddled in the wooden chair and was easily cleaned up. New panties.

And by the way, I counted that one as progress because she notified me. Don't you agree?

But, the day has actually been pleasant and fun. Mercy, Liberty and I had a tea party with their new dishes. Then we dressed up in fancy dresses and danced to Christmas music on the radio. After that, Liberty helped me put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher and she helped me dry and put away the dishes from the sink that I hand-washed. Then we stacked up the couch cushions and jumped off of the back of the rocking chair onto the pile. Both girls helped me put a load of laundry into the washing machine. I clipped forty finger-nails and toe-nails and painted thirty of them hot pink. (Mercy was too wiggly for me to paint them all.) While their nails dried, Liberty and Mercy sat at the dining room table and colored while I worked on laundry again. We ate apples, peanut butter, cinnamon graham crackers and milk for lunch, and then Mercy picked up ALL BY HERSELF WITH NO PROMPTING FROM ME each of the 48 color crayons that she had tossed from the table to the carpeting. We read books before nap time. Mercy requested AGAIN her favorite Elmo puppet book that Grandpa and Nonna gave her. My throat is not liking Elmo's voice and my carpel tunnel is flaring up from all the contortions that horrid puppet likes to put my fingers through. (He's a very active little guy.) But all in all, a wonderful, busy morning.

Now the girls are taking a nap, and I am staring at the mess in my living room. I could clean it all up and feel productive and peaceful, or I could sit and blog and preserve the memory of today.

I think I'll sit and blog. Preserving memories sounds like a noble cause, doesn't it?

And now I've come to the end, *sigh* so I guess I have to clean after all.

More wafts from our bathroom than just odorous molecules. Liberty is potty-training, and she takes a l-o-n-g t-i-m-e when she's sitting on her throne. However, she believes her verbal skills need practicing, so she faithfully practices every moment that she is awake, including the moments spent on the toilet.

I have heard more than one entertaining story shouted from the bathroom into the kitchen or living room where I am working, and I have been required to laugh, agree with and otherwise validate the long-distance storyteller.

But this morning's drifted words topped them all.

"Mommy!" came the expected little voice.

"What, honey?" I responded.

"I'm having stinks."

"Good!"

"I'm having a little stink for Mercy Jane."

I smothered a chuckle. "I'm sure Mercy Jane would appreciate that, Liberty Grace."

*Grunt*

*Grunt*

"Okay," she narrated a few moments later. "And I'm having a big stink, too."

I did not answer as I chased Mercy Jane and wrestled a sock onto her foot.

"This big stink is for you, Mommy!" She sounded pleased with herself.

How can I ever thank her?

Around 1:30 in the morning, after finishing last night's post, I climbed under my down comforter in the frozen tundra formerly known as my bedroom. I slipped a pair of knit gloves on so that I could hold my Bible without fear of frostbite, and I read the first part of Isaiah 49. The words spoke Truth directly to my heart; I took notes and everything, but my eyes kept crossing from exhaustion, so I put the Bible down and snuggled happily into my pillow.

This morning, I read the passage in Isaiah again just because it had spoken so eloquently to me the night before, and I was surprised and amused to discover that what I got out of it last night is not at all what the Bible actually says. I had transposed two words in my reading that completely change the meaning of the passage, so the notes that I had written in ink in my margins do not even make sense with the verses they are next to! I considered using white-out on my notes, but I'm going to leave them there. They don't contradict Scripture, and they'll be a great memorial for me when I pass this way again. Also, they make me laugh!

In other news, writing yesterday's post helped me define some items that are bothering me, and I realized something. This apartment is not too small for a Christmas tree. Almost everyone else in this complex has one. OUR STUFF is too cluttered.

So I made a drastic and risky move. I put the girls into the bathtub with their new dish set and deeper-than-usual water -- creating novelty, hoping to keep them occupied and unaware of my tactics. Then I silently crept to the living/dining room and picked up the entire full toy box, carried it to my closet and hid it in the far corner. I did not sort through it for popular versus unpopular toys *gasp.* Next, I grabbed the Big Wheel tricycle and several other large toys and took them to my closet as well. There was a close call on one trip when Mercy noticed a reflection of my armful of toys in the bathroom mirror as I passed. She stood up in the tub and whimpered to alert the troops, but Liberty poured some water on her head, and I was in the clear. The only items left in the living/dining room are their kitchen set, grocery cart, two cars and two small doll houses. The grocery cart basket holds a cloth bag with a few "food" items. Another cloth bag hangs from the closet door handle and contains their new play dishes. Two dress-up dresses also hang from the closet door knob. Even at their messiest, these toys won't be able take over my rooms.

Until I let the girls out of the tub.

So here's the deal.

I've been struggling with contentment, with patience, with joy (or the lack thereof). This vague uneasiness in my spirit creeps up on me, and I have very little time alone to sit and talk it out with God. That right there is probably my main problem!

1. People who are part of my heart are making decisions that they will eventually regret, and everything in me wants to step in and rescue. But I can't. I hate that.

2. God has put Jeremy and I at a place in life where we need to make some choices, but we're not sure what those choices should be. As a result, we stand here evaluating. I despise evaluating. ACTION! FORWARD! MOVE! (I truly am thankful that God has given Jeremy incredible wisdom and a talent for evaluation, but at times even that gift annoys me. LET'S GO, ALREADY!)

3. I'm sick of having my stuff in storage. We have no Christmas tree, no decorations, no stockings. Even if we did, we have no place to put them in this tiny, cramped apartment full of large toys. (Again, don't misunderstand. I'm thankful for the large toys that keep my children from climbing up the walls...most of the time.) And you know what discussion I had with myself yesterday? Why am I even complaining about this apartment. We have a place to live. It's perfectly fine. Many people don't, and I'm not wanting to trade places with them. In fact, if I did, I bet I'd be super-de-duper thankful for this place...and Barney intrudes on my thought-processes again!

4. Every fiber of my being cringes when I hear my husband second-guessing our decision to move. That, more than any other item, makes me want to scream in frustration. But even there I am thankful, because I have a husband who discusses his heart with me. I have a husband who values my opinion. We work together to make our decisions, and he trusts me with all of his thoughts and feelings just like I know I can trust him. That right there is enough to make me jump up and down with happiness. Ain't God good?

Are you feeling my mix of emotions? I'm happy; I'm impatient; I'm loved; I'm frustrated...I'm slightly pathetic.

I talked to God (briefly before all the interrupters caught up with me), and begged for help. Saturday night, He sent me this post to read. Sunday morning, He asked our Sunday School teacher to discuss Joy.

And here's what I have learned: I have to let go of my own expectations and trust God to do things His way in His time with His outcomes.

1. I expect my heart's people to do what is best for themselves, but when they make bad decisions that I cannot control, I have to trust God to love on them and reach their hearts -- no matter how long that process may take.

2. I expect to make good decisions myself easily and to keep moving, but when my forward momentum grinds to a halt because of life's situations and I have no idea which way to go, I have to trust that God will eventually open a pathway -- no matter how long that waiting period may be or what direction that pathway leads.

3. I expect my dwelling place to radiate coziness and good cheer, but when Christmas arrives, and we have no decorations and no place for decorations...seriously, is that the point of Christmas?

4. I expect Jeremy to be constantly strong and fearless, but that cannot be a realistic expectation. When doubt and fears assail...wait, there's a song for that.

Instead of leaving her bedroom after Night-Night Time, Liberty politely knocks on the inside of her door when she wants to get our attention. About an hour ago, I heard a quiet knock and then a tiny voice calmly but pitifully announced, "Mommy, I had a bad dweam. Please pray about it." My delay in responding prompted a second lady-like plea through the closed door, "Mommy, I need you to talk to God about bears and monsters, please."

My heart smiled.

I entered the room, and we prayed together. We prayed for safety and for restful sleep. We prayed for Liberty to understand that God is always with her, that He loves her incredibly (even more than Mommy does, and that is a LOT), and that she will know that she can always rely on Him for more than just bad dreams. I tucked her in, and went back to reading blogs. My relaxation time.

Just a few minutes ago, I heard a second knock and a request through the door. "Mommy, I need a bandaid. I have blood." She had picked a sore on her finger. She did not have blood, but I gave her a bandaid anyway and a good night kiss and a final tuck-in. "Liberty," I gently warned her, recognizing the bandaid ploy for what it was, "I'm not going to come in here again. If you knock on your door, I'm not going to answer. You need to sleep."

"Don't worry, Mommy," she confidently stated, "If I have a bad dweam, I will talk to God by myself. He can hear me." Then she smiled contentedly up at me and airily blew a kiss my direction.

Ninety-nine-point-eight percent of me is humbled and thankful that she and God can talk on their own, but a teeny, tiny part of me feels nostalgic for the time when Mommy was everything.

(Not "everything" as in midnight and three AM feedings, just so we're clear. I don't miss those days.)

We have a lot happening in our family life right now, and I would love to share the details. In fact, it would help me to get it all into print where it would march along in an orderly fashion so that I could pick out the brilliant thoughts from the erroneous ones. But I also value our privacy, so you, my dear internet, will be deprived of your reading privileges until we make some decisions. Sigh. I hope we make them soon. Patience is NOT one of my strong points.

So now that I have decided what I will not share, let me dig under my uppermost layer of thoughts to find something that I will share.

Oh! I know!

This morning, I declared today to be Ice Day, and it will forevermore and henceforth be a day of celebration in our household. Because I, the Vice President and Co-Founder of our household declare it so.

Our Mud Puddle has iced over! I took one look outside this morning and groaned internally. I dislike cold, although I like snow. I dislike being cooped up in this tiny apartment for the winter, although I enjoy coziness. I have not been looking forward to the seasonal change this year, although variety energizes me. I discussed this conundrum with myself as I stared at the frozen mud, and I made a decision. I WILL CELEBRATE!

I will celebrate it all. Everything that I love. Everything that I'm not so sure of. Everything that I dislike. We're gonna party this winter, the girls and I.

So I grabbed Liberty's and Mercy's hands and we danced in a circle singing, "It's Ice Day! It's Ice Day!" I put on some Christmas music, and we drank hot (warm) chocolate and popped buttery microwave popcorn. We sat in a cozy little circle on the kitchen linoleum to consume our Ice Day snack, and we laughed and tickled and spilled our way through it.

Happy Ice Day to you all!

We STILL have colds. What is with this bug?

Also, we are searching for a good house to rent.

And I'm tired.