Fridays In The Desert 1Kings

Remember that weight I lost last year?  It's back.  All of it.  And I enjoyed every single bite, but now it's time to repent and lose it again because I bought some really cute clothes last spring and I want to be able to wear them when it warms up again. 

Giving up treats and taking up exercise this week has been just as unpleasant as it sounds and is really making me wonder if I can get through my plan of 40 days of deprivation.  This is when blogging is good, because an audience is giving me accountability and I need it.  Big time.

So this week, according to plan, I read 1Kings.  It's a long one but mostly interesting and it has the story of Elijah which I love.  Here are my completely uneducated observations.

• Solomon started out as a really impressive guy.  I liked him.
• The building of the Temple would have made a fabulous series on HGTV.  I would like to see all that gold, sandalwood and bronze work up close.
• While it would make a good TV series, it's kind of boring to read about.
• If, when you watch the first Indiana Jones movie, you're at all confused about the Ark of the Covenant, this is the book for you.
• I really like Solomon until I got to the part about his 700 wives and 300 concubines.  Not shocking that he turned away from the Lord with that kind of a distraction going on.
• 700 wives? 300 concubines?  That's a whole different kind of reality series.
• Politicians, even those appointed by God himself and receiving direct, audible instructions are incapable of honesty or loyalty.
• The best part of being a prophet?  Knowing who is coming to your house before they get there!  But then I would use that knowledge to hide instead of delivering the intended message so I'm probably not going to be blessed with prophetic powers.
• The chapters in the teens are mostly boring and bloody.
• Right up until 18 which starts the story of Elijah!

I love Chapter 19.  It's so poetic and eloquent.  Elijah had reached such a low point in his life and his ministry, he was lying all alone in a desert asking to die.  Instead, God gives him food and water and has him walk for 40 days and 40 nights to meet with God at Mt. Sinai.  What follows is one of the best passages in the Old Testament.

¹⁰ Elijah replied, “I have zealously served the LORD God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.”

 ¹¹ “Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the LORD told him. And as Elijah stood there, the LORD passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. ¹² And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. ¹³ When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

   And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

 -New Living Translation.

I love that visual of looking for God in all the mighty and powerful displays, but finding Him in the quietest and gentlest of breaths.  It reminds me of nights holding my babies while they slept.  Looking at their sweet bald heads, feeling their insistent heartbeats and pressing my ear close to hear their quiet breathing . . . God was there without a doubt.  I've never been able to hold a baby and doubt that God is a creator.

Goodness, I'm sitting here getting teary.

After that chapter, things get bloody again and I'll admit that I skimmed my way through to the end.  I've never been fond of battles in literature or movies. 

One final takeaway from 1Kings?

Jezebel is a terrible name choice for a daughter.

Next week - Jonah.  Only 4 chapters!  Woo-hoo!

Being A Girl Is Fun

I get to go prom dress shopping tomorrow.

Wheeeee!

While my opinion is not Reagan's favorite, she has gotten past the stage where anything I like was an automatic "Ew".  She'll at least consider what I say now before she disagrees with me.

She is, however, a big fan of my bank account so I get to go.

For about a month she's been pinning dresses on a Pinterest board and as we were looking them over the other night, a pattern became clear:  she likes vintage, classic looks like this one.Source

Isn't it gorgeous?

When you're 5'10" though, shopping vintage via the internet is a little risky.  Women used to be shorter and I worry that it would come and the fit would be all wrong.  Plus the price on vintage is a bit more than I want to spend for a prom dress.

On the other hand, when you live in a town that only has two malls the selection is a little limited and no one wants to show up in a dress that someone else has on.

The horror!

We're going out tomorrow to see what's available around here and try things on to see what styles look best on Reagan but she already had her eye on one we found online.  We googled "vintage inspired prom dresses" and found this great site called Blue Velvet Vintage that has a lot of new dresses that look like old dresses.

This one is my favorite.Just look at the back!

It is amazing.

Too bad, I don't have a prom coming up.

Reagan has her eye on this one.

It's black lace over pink and I think it has a vintage feel, but is a lovely modern interpretation of this actual vintage dress that I found the first vintage site.

So pretty.

Of course, if Reagan truly wants vintage, I could see if my mom still has this classic look in the basement.

Hmmmmm . . . on second thought I don't think I was really going for "classic".  That dress screams 1987.

Under The Shed

I was looking out my office window the other day and saw a pile of leaves creeping across the backyard which seemed a little odd, even for my house. Standing up and leaning to my left, I saw that the leaves were attached to a tail.

A long, skinny, hairless tail.

And the tail?

It was attached to an opossum.

Ick!Yucky!Ewwwwww!Blech!Gross!Nasty!Ick!

Man I hate those things.

When we boarded our first horse, she was at an outlying farm owned by a petite red-headed woman named Donna who was in her fifties.  Donna had a big ol' club inside the barn door that she called her "'possum stick" and anytime she saw one of those nasty critters, she'd grab the stick and beat the life out of the animal.  Then she'd pick it up by the tail and toss it in the trash.

Farm women are a different breed I tell you because if I were ever brave enough to get near an opossum with a stick, I'd make a wimpy swipe at it and then it would turn and hiss and make this face Source

and I would shriek and drop the stick and do a little dance and then run away, possibly peeing my pants as I went.

So I was none to happy when the opossum with the leafy tail shuffled across my yard and then crawled under my shed.

I HAVE AN OPOSSUM LIVING UNDER MY SHED.

I don't know what to do about this.  My first instinct is to put the house up for sale and move.  Rich thinks I'm over reacting.  In fact, he has no problem with a suspiciously rodent-like marsupial living on the property. 

My next option was to call Animal Control where I got a very nice woman who told me, "Due to the high opossum population here, we don't catch them.  If you'd like to rent a humane trap from us for $10, you can catch it and we'll come pick it up for no additional charge.  I've got to tell you though, that where one opossum moves out, another one is just going to move in."

Her nonchalance over the matter was slightly reassuring.  She promised me that, as scavengers, opossums don't attack - they just go through your garbage and eat any pet food you've left out.  They are also not known to be rabies carriers in this area.

They're just really, really creepy.

I'm considering the trap option but when I told Allison (who also grew up in the country) about it, she told me to just shoot it.  We do have a high-powered pellet gun, and I am a pretty good shot - good enough to hit a creature that moves slowly enough that a pile of leaves sticks to its tail anyway, but there are a few problems with this idea.

1. Shooting it would be just a teensy bit illegal within city limits.
2. Faith, who has always hated opossums, upon hearing the shooting plan suddenly loves them and doesn't want it dead.
3. If I were to kill it, it would have to just lie in my yard and decompose because THERE IS NO WAY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH I'M TOUCHING THAT THING.

So I'm back to the moving plan.

Anyone know of a place that is opossum-free?

Winter Recital

My kids don't play basketball.

They don't play basketball because I don't like to watch basketball and so I never signed them up.

So there.

I suppose that if one of them had begged me to sign them up for basketball, I would have done so but I certainly never suggested it and they seem to be developing fairly normally so I think we're good.

What I do like are equestrian shows, soccer, and volleyball so they've done all of those.

Hayden also played baeseball because I thought I liked baseball, but after sitting in the stands through a few 100 plus degree games each summer I was fairly delighted when he decided to hang up his bat and glove for good.

Although I have to say - he was pretty adorable in his uniform.

Of all the things I like to watch, I like to watch dance the most.  Probably because it doesn't involve weather or whistles.  There are no bad calls from referees, loud gyms, dirt or horse poop.

Instead there are theater seats, costumes, music and make up.  What's not to love? (Hayden actually has a pretty long list in answer to that question.)  So I was delighted when Faith's dance studio added a winter recital this year.  Her studio director believes dance is an art, not a sport, so her dancers don't do competitions.  I already appreciated that theory, but after watching a few episodes of Dance Moms I am doubly convinced that this is the way to go. The downside though is that without competitive events, we really only had one opportunity a year to see Faith perform which is not enough for this mama.

I truly appreciated the extra opportunity this year to watch my girl in her element.

 

I know she's getting too old for me to call her cute but . . . 

. . .isn't she????

Fridays In The Desert - Me and Moses

I am wearing slippers to work today.  Every now and then as part of our Drug Awareness program, we have a "fun" day.  Today is: Don't Slip Up And Do Drugs! so everyone is wearing slippers.

So basically, I have to wear these today, or down the road these kids are going to become drug addicts.  It's a lot of pressure, forming young minds.

As per my schedule, I read Exodus this week.

I'm not even going to pretend to be a biblical scholar and try to break it down for you, but here are my impressions:

• I'm really glad I'm not a slave who has to spend my day making bricks out of straw that I have to haul myself - without slippers.
• It would be really cool to know how to weave well enough to make a waterproof baby cradle.
• I don't like the Pharaoh AT ALL.
• Plagues are icky - especially the one where the river turns to blood.  Gross.
• I don't understand the choice of Moses as the leader of Israel.  As long as Aaron was doing all the talking, why not just put him in charge?
• The Israelites were a whiny bunch.
• Which means I have a lot in common with them.  I don't think I would have lasted three days in the desert without wanting to turn back either.  Even when I'm in a miserable place, I prefer the misery I'm familiar with to an unknown outcome.
• I think though, that a giant pillar of fire leading me through the hard places would make things easier - or at least clearer?
• All of the testing and trials do seem to have made Moses more confident and a better leader so there must be something to that.
• I love God's command that the Israelites must celebrate in the same way at the same time each year to commemorate what God has done for them.  I think I kind of do that with my husband and kids on our Anniversary Day every year.

The mention of Moses' 40 days on the mountain didn't have much detail so I'm not really sure how to apply it to my 40 day plan but, as always, this chapter is full of lots of other meaty lessons.

Next week is 1Kings - one of my favorites!