Can I ask you a favor?

Hey friends,

I have a big favor to ask you. SixtyFeet, the ministry my mission team worked with in the children's prisons in Uganda, is having a contest of sorts.

They're taking votes on their blog to determine three cities they will visit this fall in what they are calling an "awareness tour", designed to bring awareness to their ministry and the work they do. They will be showing a 30 minute video that they filmed at M1, and then discussing their ministry and ways people can get involved. Oh, I would love it so much if they came to my hometown!

Do you even KNOW how much I would love love it if they came to my hometown??

So here's where you come in. If you know me in real life - or even not in real life but you know where I live - could I ask you to go to their blog and vote for my hometown? (unless, of course, you want to vote for your own hometown!)

You can click here, then scroll down to the comments and enter your name and email (I promise they will NOT spam you). Then all you have to say is, "Please visit (insert the name of my hometown)."

That's it! Easy, right? And I would be sooooo grateful! There was a group of 9 ladies from one church who visited the prisons in July on a trip with Visiting Orphans, and I think they've gotten their whole church to vote! Hopefully we can still make it in the top 3. :)

They will be announcing the winning cities on September 6, so don't delay!

Oh, yes, and please feel free to pass this along if you feel so inclined. :)

Thanks so much, friends! I promise to send you an invitation if we win. :)

First day of school

Have your kiddos started back to school yet? Ours started last Monday (the 22nd). The day after Kloe's birthday. Poor girl, she is always the absolute youngest in her class. I always wonder if high school is going to be hard for her because of that.

My sweet Kloe is in middle school this year. MIH. DUHL. SCHOOL. (!) She had to take some pictures to school of herself growing up, so I was digging through her old school pictures and baby pictures, and I thought, "How did this happen?"

How is she 11 years old and taking classes like ATHLETICS and BAND and PRE-AP MATH? What happened to learning how to write her name and even spell the word "school"?



Beautiful girl. She hated the first 2 days of school and cried herself to sleep 2 nights in a row. She was late to every single class the first day and declared that she would NEVER be able to find all her classes on time. By the 3rd day, when one of her old 5th grade teachers (who we saw while picking up Jacob) asked her how she likes middle school, her answer was, "I love it!" :)

And she is so excited about being in band that she's beside herself. A girl after my own marching-band heart. :) They actually had instrument selection before the end of school last year, and much to her heart's delight, she will be playing....not the trumpet....


(haha - looks the the cymbal is coming out of her forehead)


....not the clarinet....





....but, the FLUTE!



She has already named her flute. Meet Frederick. I know.

And my little J-man is in 3rd grade this year. The BIG grade. The not-a-little-boy-anymore grade. The state standardized testing grade. But not quite yet the "too big to hold hands with Daddy" grade. :)



His teacher actually used to be Kloe's babysitter when Kloe was a baby. Cute, huh? :)

He was my child who was NOT excited about going back to school. Who ONLY was happy that he would get to see his friends again and have recess. But yesterday they did their reading-level testing, and he was BUSTING with excitement to tell me that he can read "all the way up to 5.3!!"

And also to tell me, "Mom, I like school." :)

Another year. Here we go. And in about 15 minutes it will be over. :)

Yesterday.....

Ok, ok, I KNOW! I really shouldn't announce when I'm going to make an annoucement, because then something usually happens and I don't. Sorry!

So, without further ado, here's the "big announcement" I fully intended to post YESTERDAY.




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Yesterday, I got these.....


(From my sweet hubby. Aren't they gorgeous? They're even more beautiful in real life.)



.....because I got these.



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And yes, this awful picture pretty much sums up how I was feeling about them right about then. :)

Yes, they hurt, but not too much. Except when I eat.

No, I'm not excited, but I hope to be eventually. :)

The end. :)

Tomorrow.....

Big surprise coming tomorrow!!

Ok....not a surprise.

Big announcement coming tomorrow!!


Stay tuned....

Everything reminds me of Uganda.

Backpack staple. And good thing, too, as we had to eat lunch on the bus a couple of times - whatever we happened to have with us. :)


Uganda has wonderful coffee, but some of us brought these with us just in case. :) A one-cup coffee pot (provided by my wonderful teammate, Ginger) and a bottle of water, and wah-lah! Just like home. Except that I don't actually drink Starbucks at home. :)




LOVE this stuff! This was my first time to try it, and my teammates agreed....love!





They say your sense of smell is the strongest memory-inducer, and I believe it. Every time I use this I'm right back in that cold shower. ;)




Ohhhh, we ate so much fresh produce while we were there. Cucumbers, tomatoes, avacados, cabbage, mangos, bananas, pineapple....it was wonderful!

I miss you, Uganda.

Boys.

Last summer I went on a PTA trip with four other ladies from our school. As tends to happen when you get a group of women together, the conversation quickly turned to all things female: labor and delivery stories, PMS, and of course, those dastardly panty lines.

Boy shorts. That was the end-all panty-line solution presented by two members of our troupe. However, my friend Jen informed me of a major knock against them….they are teeny tiny tall. Like those jeans with a 2-inch-long zipper. You know, like plumber pants.

But, desperate for a solution to said line issue, I began to shop around. (Aren’t you glad you know this information about me? I’m here to serve.) Jen was right. Teeny tiny tall. All of them. Everywhere. All of them….EXCEPT Gilligan and O’Malley! Found some. Tried ‘em out. Here’s the review. You’re welcome.

1. They still ride up just as bad even worse than regulars.


2. You can’t solve the ride up issue because when you pull down you’re only pulling on the little leg part, not the….umm….important part.

And.


3. You still have lines. They just go across instead of UP.

I didn’t even bother taking the tags of the second pair.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Thoughts on going to the dentist

I have come to hate going to the dentist.

I didn’t used to hate it, but for the last few years it seems all that scraping and digging and scraping just about push me over the edge. Maybe my 40-year-old teeth just can’t handle it anymore.

And really, it’s not the dentist’s fault. It’s the hygienist who actually makes the deal or breaks it. They’re the ones who actually do most of the work. The dentist is there for all of about 3.4 minutes, does a little poking around, checks my bite, looks under my tongue, and he’s outta there. I actually love my dentist as a person (even though I’d rather love him from afar), but the last THREE TIMES I’ve gone, his hygienist has made me seriously consider breaking up with him. She is SO ROUGH, and I’ve left the office in major pain, feeling like I've just had oral surgery, and have had to take Advil for 2 solid days just to be able to eat.

Not kidding.

So when I went last week, I literally was dreading it for 3 days before. I woke up that morning praying that God would “Please don’t let me have the mean rough hygienist! PLEASE don’t let me have the rough hygienist!”

Did you know God cares about your mouth comfort? Glory and hallelujah, I didn’t have the rough hygienist! And since I didn’t, and since my dentist seems to get a new one about every 18-24 months, I figured she was gone. But she wasn’t. I saw her in the office. God was just having mercy on my gums. Thank you, Lord.

However, it looks like He’s calling me to take the longer, less glorious and hallelujah-ous road with respect to all the trouble I’ve been having with my jaw. For about the last two years, every time I go to the dentist he says, “You know, your jaw’s not going to get any better until you get braces.” Ugh. And it’s been hurting enough – and badly enough – lately that I’m seriously contemplating yielding to his command offer. We’ll see. Right now I’m calculating all the insurance differentials and trying to decide if it’s worth it to wait until the new plan year.

And relishing my clean, not-throbbing teeth.

Wooohooo! Love this!

Jesus shows up at Oprah's "Legends Ball"...

For Girls Only project

I have loved working on the For Girls Only project so much. Even though it was so much harder than it looked (Lara's awesome tutorial made it look easy-peasy!). Even though I got a stiff neck from looking down at my sewing machine for so long (and even though I look like a dork in this picture :)). Even though I made some of the pads too skinny and almost couldn't get the cloths inside.

This is my zone. My happy place. My thang. Not sewing.....doing. I love it when I come across hands-on things I can DO to help. Because usually I don't have the foggiest idea what to do.

And to think that I could do something to help, and those receiving the help would be young ladies living in my newly-beloved Uganda? Icing.

Canaan Children's Home

When I was in Uganda, our team lived with the children at Canaan Children's Home for four days. What a beautiful tribute to Pastor Isaac and his love for God and children.



Read more about Canaan's and the incredible story of how God saved Pastor Isaac from a literal firing squad HERE (click on History at the top). (FYI - on the history page, you will read that Pastor Isaac was shot in the hand. In fact, he was shot in the upper arm and because of the amount of blood loss, that is why the shooters thought he was dead. I saw the scar myself!)