Lexical Light

Blog Recommendations for my Friend

To my friend who may be need some more blog material while she's up nursing her cute little baby, here are a few of my favorite blogs:

Mommylife.net - Barbara Curtis is mom of twelve, home schooled for 8 years, has authored several books for moms and has tons of great content. She's also one of my main inspirations for blogging and writing.

Lifenut.com/blog- Mopsy/Gretchen is another favorite and online friend from the early days of my blog. She has 7 kiddos, all wonderfully quoted and depicted on her blog, and one more little one on the way. We both like Elf, Wheel of Fortune and have Charlie Brown Thanksgivings. We also drive buses. She has the "red brick" and I have the "great white." She will make you laugh and cry as she shares her life. Oh, yeah. I was born in Denver and she lives in Denver. :)

Liberty- Christy is my real life friend from a home school co-op. She has 3 BOYS and shares hilarious stories about them. (Do they know that, Christy?) She's also a deep thinker and a U2 fan.

Lynn - is another real life friend. She is a worshiper, not just a singer, but a worshiper. Her posts are thoughtful with a bit o humor thrown in. Simply reading her blog has made be want to worship God on more than one occasion

So, there ya go, my real life friend who needed some more reading material. I'm happy to help.

Better than Saturday Morning Cartoons

Wow. What a cool morning it's been. The quick version of my agenda:

7:00 am - breakfast at IHOP w/a friend. Pumpkin pancakes, eggs, laughs, good counsel, and tea bags from home made for an absolutely refreshing meeting.

9:30 - scrapbook store to check on cropping area guidelines. Since they weren't open, I read a little Gatto in the van.

10:15 - It's fun to stay at the YMCA. Did an hour on the elliptical. Can I read on the elliptical w/out barfing? Yep. Woohoo! The Gatto book was cumbersome, but smaller books should be easier - unless the print was too small. Made sure I strectched well afterwards, to help w/the Achilles issue.

12:00 - scarfin' a Mighty Kids Meal at Mickey D's. It's not as healthly as Jason's Deli, but not as bad as Sonic. Read a little more in the van.

12:30 - Ahhh, the library. Yes, I have a computer at home, but it's not quite and neat at home. :) After my hour and a half of computer time is up I'll head back to the homefront to prep us all for church this evening.

This has been one of the most restorative moring's I've had. Though hubby took the kiddos the G'parents a couple of days last week, I stayed in the house and did nothing. This felt much better.

Thanks, strong, handsome Jack, for this mornig. I owe you. ;)

Chicken Head & Chicken Butt

One of my favoritest people from my illustrious Sam's career during college is Chicken Butt, a.k.a. Tonya. We met at Sam's and both attended UT. There were a few semesters that we were almost inseparable, from work to school, etc.

I was so excited when she left a comment the other day. We indeed had some fun dancing to "Why Can't I Be You?" I don't want to go back in time, but I do miss Ton.

When she commented, I dug up a few pictures of us being goofy.

This was at an apartment Lisa & I shared. A large two bedroom apartment with brown shag carpet for only $150 a month. Even my late 1980's standards that was cheap. Neither the apartment nor the neighborhood were the best, but we liked it.

This fountain was in Lincoln Village in Austin. The shopping center is still there, but the fountain is not. I had to explain to the kids jumping in fountains is usually not allowed.

(I need to edit the text on the picture, but will have to do it later.)

Hope you like seeing these pics, Ton.

I Love U2...and You Two, Part 2

As if the conversation from the other night hasn't yielded enough fun, there was a bit more today.  Jen, the other dear friend present at Fourbucks, said she picked up something for me over the weekend. No occasion other than that's what she likes to do. Apparently she's pretty good at it too.

She made my day, and read my mind, when she gave me a big ol' book about U2. Not just any book, but the one I had almost bought for myself  last weekend. (I exercised restraint.) I hadn't told her about it, she just knew that I thoroughly enjoy books and U2. She even joked about me Dewey Decimaling* it. What a sweet friend. :) 

I thought about getting something for her, too - from the public library. As if that's not pitiful enough, it was a non-fiction book and she usually reads only fiction, especially in the summer. In the end, I didn't get the book and just told her about it later. Thankfully, she's not only a thoughtful friend, she has a good sense of humor.

Thanks, Jen, for thinking of me.

One more testament to her friendship - she's subscribed to my blog though being on the computer is one of her least favorite things. Now that's a friend.

*My guess is it's in the 700's. A quick check of the DDC blog confirms that, unless it's in 900 for biography. I'll check the book later.

I Love U2...and You Two

Meeting my close girlfriends at Fourbucks* is one of my favorite things. Last week we had a particularly loud & laughter filled time on patio.

During our little coffee klatch my astute musical ears picked up U2 on the outdoor speakers, but I didn't recognize the song. (I'm thinking it's World Cup related.) Regardless, I practically sighed, "I love U2" to my friends. This fairly gushing declaration of affection was prompted by an earlier realization that U2's albums CDs are some of the few that I will listen to all the way through and because Bono is my favorite lyricist.

This was a bit significant because I'm careful about not idolizing celebrities. I also try to be careful about flinging the word love about, overused word that it is. Finally, neither of my friends enjoy U2 quite as much as I do. So, I would usually keep that thought for myself. But, in the warmth of the moment, I knew I could share such a "bold" statement. (Yes, I know I'm quite the rabble-rouser.)

I didn't think much of it until I got this e-mail from my dear friend Lynn (quoted w/permission):

"Last night at Starbucks when Lexie said “I love U2”
I thought she meant “I love you two!”
I was touched    (briefly)
I was about to pipe in “I love you two, too!”
Until I realized the mistaken homophones.

Tragic…."

The minute I got the e-mail, I knew it was blog worthy. 

BTW, I'm am thrilled to have a friend who uses the word homophones so easily.

*HT to the Thinklings for the lingo

A Gift of 2 Hours

A friend just come by and picked up all four of the kiddos for an impromptu visit. Woohoo! Good for the kids and good for me. Thanks for the gift of time, my friend.

Now, what do I do w/these 2 hours? 

I’ll break it into 30 minute increments and do a few “have to”s & a few “want to”s. This blog post is a “want to”. (Oops…gotta go get the trusty timer.) I’ll do a little financial upkeep, some prep for school & house prep for tomorrow & some stuff for the home school co-op. (I’ll have to cut the blog time short to add more to the co-op time.) 

About the blog…it’s been about 2 weeks since my last post. In that time I’ve welcomed hubby home from 3 weeks in El Salvador, done some fun/useful planning w/hubby, had some good times with friends, and have been improving my home schooling, esp. some child training, etc.

I haven’t purposely taken time off from the blog, but have been trying really hard to keep it in it’s rightful place. (Avid bloggers know what I’m talking about.) 

The bottom line….I’m blessed beyond measure, extremely thankful for where I am & whom I’m surrounded by. 

Because I feel this post is lacking much merit on it’s own, I’ll point you to a recent post from Mopsy that made me laugh out loud. What a lifenut.

A Caroling We Went

The night started off innocently enough as a get together of 3 families who are “long-time, not seen enough now” friends. We treated ourselves to pizza from Papa John’s, threw in a salad for good measure and had plenty of Christmas cookies. Midway through the evening we took a stroll around the neighborhood, 10 kids (ages 18 months to 12 years) and 6 adults (30 somethings), to look at Christmas lights. We didn’t set out with the intent to sing loudly off key as we enjoyed the lights, but on the way home a few of the girls started singing the Batman version of Jingle Bells. Kids are always a great excuse to do things you wouldn’t normally do with a group of adults, so I took advantage of that and redirected their singing to the traditional Jingle Bells, followed by We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Then one of the 5 year old girls lead us in Joy to the World. (Traditional carol versions, not the  Three Dog Night Version.) Oh what fun it is to exercise our 1^st Amendment rights…hey!

I’m not much of a caroling fan if you have to stop at people’s house and bug them, but it was fun strolling around singing, especially when we were able to sing of the actual reason for Christmas…Jesus’ birth! I may have to add walk by caroling as a new tradition.