The Mom Blah Blah Blog

It's funny how the smallest little incident can bring you back down a few steps on your road to self acceptance.  One of those incidents happened to me just the other day.  When I was out I saw this woman, I did abut of a double take, she looked familiar but I couldn't quite place her.  She gave me a little look to but I wasn't sure if it was because she knew me too or if she just caught me looking at her.  That's it, end of incident.  I know you're thinking what's the big deal and it would have just passed through my mind and would have been over if it hadn't been for what happened next.  I climbed into the van with my husband and he said "I think I saw ________'s wife."  A lightbulb went off.  That was the woman I saw!  It was her!  The problem is she and I had a falling out a few years ago and I haven't seen her in a long time.  I also know that she really isn't fond of me...at all.  For reason that I am still not fully a...

In the last few posts I have focused on having an attitude of forgiveness and steps that can be taken towards that but there is also the other side of the equation, when you are the one in need of being forgiven.  I think all of us have also been in this position too and sometimes it's not easy to accept.  I have titled this post "It's Not Easy Being Mean" because, although we don't want to accept the idea that we do things that are hurtful and mean to others we are all human and make mistakes.  Those mistakes do hurt others. Usually the first thing that happens when we get caught messing up is we try to shift the blame elsewhere or make excuses for why we did it.  "I only said those mean things because SHE said ... about me."  "I just took that opportunity/object/person/etc. from him because HE wasn't holding up his end of the bargon."  We can come up with any number of excuses  reasons for doing what we do. That doesn't make it righ...

I have a feeling some of the people that might have read yesterday's post could be mad at me.  It's possible they are thinking about some horrible thing that has happened to them and wondering how, or even why they could forgive that.  Some of you could be angry because you think I'm shifting the "blame" to the one holding out on forgiveness instead of the one that did the wrong thing.  It might sound like I am making light of a difficult situation and I don't know how hard it is to choose to forgive. I have never really liked the motto "forgive and forget" very much.  I know that I can forgive but forgetting, well that's another story.  We have a tendency to really get stuck on the negative too.  It makes it SO EASY to hold a grudge.  It would be really nice, not to mention helpful, if we had a delete button for our brains.  Someone calls us a nasty name, delete.  We are abused by someone who is supposed to protect us, delete.  We get...

Have you seen the movie Wreck it Ralph?  If not then I certainly recommend it.  It was a great movie that our whole family enjoyed.  One thing that I really liked was how the "good guy" Fix it Felix, had a magical hammer that fixes everything when he hits something with it.  Even things like, say, his face.  Sometimes I think my kids believe my husband must have one of these hammers stashed away someplace.  After all he can fix just about anything.  Even if the supplies to repair said item cost more than the item itself.  It doesn't matter cause it's about making them happy. Once in a while though something will get broken that is irreparable.  That's when I really wish I had Felix's hammer.  Especially when what gets broken is a relationship. I was thinking about one of these relationships today and mourning for the unnecessary pain that still exists there that I wish could be fixed.  This is when I started to think about what ...

Last fall my daughters school had a magazine sales fund raiser.  For a little treat to myself I thought I would subscribe to the Martha Stewart Living magazine.  I have enjoyed picking it up in the past and gotten a few good ideas for crafts and decor so I sent in my information with high hopes of all the fun, crafty and adorable creations I would be making this year.  I also started devising a plan.  I thought about how sometimes Martha Crafts don't quite work out the way they are supposed to.  I remembered a few previous attempts at making items found in the pages that ended up costing far more than you would imagine to make.  I started to think of how I could attempt an item from each edition that came and then blog about my results.  I know I'm more crafty than the average individual so if I could come up with one thing to make I could inform others about how closely my results resembled the ones in the magazine. As soon as I received the first i...

To be honest, I don't remember the last time I bought a cook book.  Though I have (really over the last few years) developed a love of cooking, mostly I have avoided books on the subject.  There are a few reasons for that.  One, I am reluctant to buy a cook book if I don't know that the recipes will actually be good.  Two, I have a few books I don't use a whole lot and didn't think buying a new one would be neccessary and Three, I have mostly been using the internet as my source for quality recipes.  This book has changed my mind about these things. First off, many of you, like myself would have sampled some of the recipes from the first installment of this book as we were growing up.  When I mentioned to my mom that the Mennonite Girls Can Cook have relieced a new instalment she was nostalgic for the first book and intregued by this second edition.  The recipes included are for things I, as a person from German Mennonite decent grew up eating. ...

I have been wondering since this book arrived how I would handle writing a review for it.  Since the issue of same sex marriage and homosexuality is such a controversial topic and a really heated argument in Church as well at in society.  I did want to read this book however, since I have often wondered if my stance on the subject lines up with scripture and theological debate.  I also have struggled with some of my own views on what I believe and hoped this book would clear that up for me. I believe this book attempts to resolve the tension and strife between the extreme sides of the debate.  Through the analyses of scripture, using logic as well as natural theology the author analyzes the scriptures about marriage and sexuality as well as the theories of those that are both anti and gay marriage.  He mentions early in the book that he was at one time of one opinion on the topic but over time, though prayer and study he changed his views.  This helped m...