The Mom Blah Blah Blog

I always expect books like this to be a sort of how to manual with lots of "this is what you should dos" and "you need to bes" but that was exactly what this book was not.  From the moment I picked up Love Does I was riveted by the stories of an incredible life lived actually doing the work of love.  Bob talks about the things he has learned through experience.  He doesn't tell us a bunch of words that we need to learn and a lot of passages we need to memorize.  Instead he tells us that Love should be an action rather than a feeling and shows, through his life and the life of others, how God can really WORK through us to be the love rather than telling people about it.  His style of writing was wonderfully refreshing.  He starts each chapter with a little proclamation, almost a thesis statement for the following pages.  They all include "I used to.... But now I...."  and the chapter goes on to explain, with unbelievable stories, how his percepti...

I watch a lot of the Food Network, I mean a lot!  Pretty much any time I am able to change the channel away from Treehouse or Disney Junior I watch food.  I watch it when I'm on the elliptical and I follow the competition shows they have.  I often wonder how I could wrangle my way into being in one of the locations for Top Chef challenges or if I could somehow be chosen as a judge for Iron Chef.  Sadly I haven't come up with any good ideas yet.  Even though I watch a lot of shows about food I can't say that I really try out to much of what I see.  For one thing I have 2 little mouths to feed who are sometimes reluctant to try new things as well as 1 big mouth to feed who is sometimes reluctant to try new things.  Actually I shouldn't say that, the grown up will eat pretty much anything but he doesn't really enjoy eating and want to try new things the way that I do.  The other draw back to making Food Network quality nosh is my groce...

I have always thought that I was pretty easy going.  For the most part that's true.  It takes a fair bit to get me pissed off about something and I am up for most adventures.  I also seemed to think this meant I didn't make snap judgements about people or treat them unfairly.  This is not true.  I know I have the power to hold a grudge like nobodies business. It's pretty easy to justify a grudge too.  Since it takes a fair bit to piss me off I sort of assume if you have pushed me far enough to make me angry there is a good reason to hold onto the past.  A real light bulb came on for me the other day however when I happened to think about one of the few people I hold a grudge against.  I could not really remember what they had done that was so wrong.  I had no recollection of the reason the grudge began.  That's when I thought, could what they did really have been so bad that I am still holding onto this aversion to them ev...

My daughter has been asking about poetry.  There is a little blurb on the channel she watches that talks about rhymes and poems and she asked me the other day to explain a little more.  This has gotten me thinking about poetry and how I used to write in high school.  I used to think it was pretty good.  I pulled some of it out a few weeks ago and it turns out I was mostly wrong but I did rather enjoy writing it.  There are a few that aren't too terrible.  I used an example of a poem I wrote back then to explain to my daughter about matching line length and rhyme.  I think it was one of the only poems I wrote that did rhyme, and it is sort of cute so I thought I would share. Marriage He asked me if I'd marry him, I don't know if I can. After all my eyes will surely fall Upon another man. He's waiting for an answer. I don't know what to do. I think that I might need some time, To think this matter through. I...

We're back from our weekend in Chicago and it was fantastic.  The weather was great, the city was beautiful and we enjoyed both a Jazz and a Blues bar with amazing music.  Just before we left we discovered that while we would be in town there was going to be protesting.  I asked what they were going to be protesting and the answer was, everything!  It seems there was both NATO and the G8 in town that same weekend and though they apparently decided to move the G8 to Camp David there was still an estimated 10,000 protesters in town that weekend.  Who knows though, we might have been counted in that number too.  We did end up in a few groups of moving people.  There was police everywhere!  This picture is the string of Homeland Security vehicles parked literally just outside our hotel the whole weekend.  There was police in riot gear on every corner, on Sunday we spotted snipers perched on the rooftops and there was 3 helicopters constantly ...

Normally I love birthdays.  I enjoy the excuse to celebrate, eat what you like and maybe get something you have wanted.  What's wrong with that?  This year, though I am excited I am a little less so than usual to be turning a year older.  Tomorrow I will be 35.  I didn't have a problem with turning 30.  I didn't see it as a big deal at all but for some reason 35...now that seem different.  I'm not going to be in my MID 30s.  It seems like the number that tips the scale towards the middle age side rather than the young and care free side.  I still see myself as far to immature to be be this age. Part of what freaked me out is the trip we are taking.  My husband was talking to a guy at work that was planning to go to Chicago as well so we decided we would go together.  Save the gas cost and car pool.  It's a win, win.  He was going to be going by his self but then about a week and a half ago got back together with his girl...

I was supposed to meet an old friend for lunch today.  We rescheduled because of my crazy lack of sleep last night and how sick I'm feeling.  We have recently reconnected after years of not talking and once we spent a little time together I realized I had been sort of holding back on my friendships and letting other relationships get in the way of ones that could have been more nourishing and affirming. I had a different friend ask the other day on Facebook if anyone has ever had to break up with a friend.  (I hope she doesn't mean me!)  That also got me thinking about our friendship relationships.  I have spoken before about a really close friend of mine that I had a falling out with.  Really it was her doing the breaking up but there were things I realized about friendship from that situation.  In a lot of ways friendships are like a marriage.  The longer you are friends the more history you have together.  Sometimes that history can clou...