Thanks, Siri.

Here's what you get when you give your six-year-old your phone for 15 minutes:

I'd like to hereby apologize to anyone who received confusing emails, texts, or phone calls between the hours of 3:50 and 4:05 p.m.

Still Waters.

I loved this blog post this morning.  It reminded me to watch what I read, and also validated feelings I have had lately about not checking into Facebook.   It has been so UGLY on there lately.  Hurtful.  You can almost SEE friendships get diluted in the comments section of a fiery post. 

It has also convicted me of watching my mouth and only trying to “Do the truth quietly without display.” (Brennan Manning)   I have a big mouth, so that part is sorta tricky.  But I'd never want to say (or type) something and make someone feel unaccepted.  Because unaccepted, unwanted, unADORED...is a LIE.

On a similar note, I've been reading Brennan Manning this week, as I am starting a small Bible study group tomorrow that focuses on reading The Ragamuffin Gospel together.  This week it's chapter 1 along with Psalm 139.  This passage resonates today:

“And Grace calls out, 'You are not just a disillusioned old man who may die soon, a middle-aged woman stuck in a job and desperately wanting to get out, a young person feeling the fire in the belly begin to grow cold. You may be insecure, inadequate, mistaken or potbellied. Death, panic, depression, and disillusionment may be near you. But you are not just that. You are accepted.' Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted.” ― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

P.S. I really LOVE this Brennan Manning book, I adore Brennan (OOOooooh I got to hear him speak in person in Chapel Hill years ago!), and please don't get me wrong...but I really, really, REALLY dislike the word 'ragamuffin'.  Strongly dislike.  It reminds me of 6th grade menstruation verbiage and Always maxi pads with wings (the ones in the purple package).  I think I'm going to move to re-name the book as my first call of duty in this Bible study.

The SOUPra.

This is the car with which I learned to drive.  The 1984 Toyota Celica Supra, in silver, just like this one.  This car was the absolute shizzzzzle when my dad bought it in 1984 (for lack of a better term).  By the time I inherited it (at some point in the mid-nineties), my sister had already knocked both side view mirrors off and one of the pop-up lights was permanently upright, making the car appear as if it were winking at you as it drove by in broad daylight.

My father thought it was important that my sister and I learn to drive on a stick shift, so he kept the Supra around just so we could learn to drive in it.  We subsequently both beat the tar out it, and heaped some abuse on other cars as well.  The Supra had doors that were as long as surfboards (they look deceptively average-sized in this photo); they could swiftly administer a dent the size of a dinner plate.

The Soup, in its heyday, was vaguely reminiscent of the car on Knight Rider...which was, of course, one of our favorite shows.  We lovingly called it "KIT" when my dad brought it home for the first time, shiny and new.  Shortly thereafter my sister and I were stuffed into the buckety back seats for a cross-country road trip from Indiana to Oregon...a horrific journey that would live in infamy in our family.  We threw up, we complained, we stopped at every Holidome from here to there and listened to the Annie soundtrack 8,000 times in the backseat of that car.  It is ridiculous, in retrospect, that my kids can't make it to the county line without asking for a movie in the van.

I'd love to sit in the cockpit of one of these one more time.  I can still remember what the dashboard looked like....but just barely.  I wonder if I could still drive a stick?

Because we all celebrate in different ways.

You guys, IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.  Let's get out the GOOD toilet paper!

Victory.

About a month ago my spouse and I got into a great big nasty fight.  It was one of those that started out about ONE thing, but then each of us dragged in old wrongdoings, a few character assassinations and soon enough, it was a great big throw down.

And it all started as an argument about loading the dishwasher.

HE has a firm belief that the dishwasher rack tines that are given to us (by the men of science who created them) are all going the WRONG way.  The dishes and bowls need to face DOWN towards the bottom of the washer, says he, or else they just won't get clean.

If you are of HIS school of thought, you will fit about six dinner plates and one bowl into each dishwashing load.  Which is annoying.  I don't even feel I need to be patronizing here and tell you WHY this is annoying.  We all know why.

Tonight I gazed down to see the bottom rack, 3/4 full with only four dinner plates...and that was the last straw.  I pulled up the Bosch website and together we watched a video on how to load the dishwasher correctly.

And, as the truth was revealed, I did a little gloating pee pee dance.  (Without the pee.)

I LOVE BEING RIGHT.  I'm aware that I've been known to be dramatic, but this time I'm being totally serious: there is NO ONE IN THESE FIFTY UNITED STATES who professes expertise on more topics without any basis of knowledge or experience to back his claims than my dear and beloved husband.  One time he looked at a Christmas tree at the mall and told me what year the tree started to sprout from seedling.  1953, he said.  1955 at the latest, he said.  And then he crossed his arms, widened his stance, and squinted at it one last time with authority.

I'll quietly lose my mind in moments such as these...hopelessly adrift on a never-ending sea of bullhonky.  But had I been armed with a hacksaw that night?  I would have cut through that tree on the spot just to count the rings with my own two eyes.

I've had lots of those kinds of moments.  14 years of them, to be exact.  And nine times out of ten, there's no hacksaw or manual or internet video to prove him wrong.  But not tonight, my friends.  Tonight I have the manual, the internet, the youtube videos and THE ENTIRE TEAM OF GERMAN ENGINEERS FROM BOSCH ON MY SIDE!  I'm glowing from within, I tell you.

He just left to go play basketball with his buddies and I have been busy texting him screenshots from the Bosch manual, as well as photos from a recent Bosch Engineering convention (I assume you were there, honey...oh wait...you're NOT a German dishwasher engineer??)  It's so gloriously obnoxious.  I'm enjoying myself immensely.

The Blues.

I am on another diet.

If I was Miles Davis my albums would be filled with bluesy ballads about being fat and eating un-fulfilling diet foods while watching all of the thin people eat their pizza and cupcakes and bagels washed down with beer and iced mochachinnos.

Sure, blues music is reserved for REAL suffering.  Fine.  Let the true blues music lovers stick with their 'REAL' suffering.  I bet Miles Davis never watched a room full of people eat Mexican food while sipping on a HOT TEA.

If I was Miles Davis, the target demographic for my brand of blues would be the overweight 30-40-year-old mom set.  My music would be available for sale in the Target clearance section.  Possibly as a gift-with-purchase at Ann Taylor Loft.

And I'd be a SMASH.

Where I showcase a GOOD Mom.

Part of my desire to fix my food/diet/exercise/health/bullcrap problem is grounded in the fact that it has kept me thinking about ME for my whole life.  It's the most cyclical, self-centered, self-loathing, and basically a self self self self selfish kind of problem...and I've had it since the third grade.  So, today (and maybe as a regular blog feature), I'm going to think about someone else.

LINDSAY.  Where do I begin?

Let me preface my description of Lindsay by creating a sharp contrast for you.  For ME, summer is the least favorite season of all.  Or, at least it has been since we've had kids.  Summer is hard.  Summer is hot.  Summer is long days filled with nothingness.  Summer is hundreds of trips to the pool where you'll have to wear your Momkini and do your best to prevent tiny people from drowning while simultaneously doing your best to be invisible.  (The full coverage skirt and tankini top with spanx built in is never full coverage enough when you know EVERYONE. AT. THE. POOL.)

The emptiness of the days is tough for me.  I've never been the kind of mom that embraces an empty calendar, imagining the impromptu craft sessions, the flour-covered baking parties, the picnics in the park.  I like structure.  Plans.  Activities.  I like NOT having to play in the pool with my kids.

This is the polar opposite of my friend Lindsay.  She plans weeks of the summer with her boys around themes.  It's amazing.  She picks a theme (like, say, "RAINBOWS") and each day has a different activity that revolves around rainbows.  One day it's a rainbow craft, one day they get rainbow books from the library, and so on.  She does this for a WHOLE summer.  And she does it enthusiastically, while remaining ridiculously gorgeous and thin.  I'm willing to bet she'd proudly wear a string bikini and play a game of tackle football with her boys at the pool.

You might be saying, WHY are you friends with such an irritatingly perfect being?  Well, first, it's because she's awesome.  She let's me tell her she's perfect and irritating and she laughs at me for it.  She's creative and artistic and we come up with wild and fun projects together!  She's fun and funny.  We go to the same church.  We love Nordstrom Rack.  We're both high maintenance (me a teeny bit more so, but who's counting).  We're both perfectionists (she a little bit more so, but who's counting).  We can talk about shopping or Jesus or nothing.  I can let a four-letter-word fly and she doesn't judge me.  She has three delightful boys that love to play with my kids and my kids love to play with them.  And she also has a giant ridiculous dog that comes to play with my dogs and THEY love each other, too.

Today I will be inspired to come up with an activity to do with my kids.  A fun activity that's centered around them.  In honor of what I've learned from my friend, Lindsay.

Hmmm.  I'm already tired.