Listening to new tunes...rockin my baby

have a happy day!!!

TICKTICKTICKTICKTICKTICKTICKTICKTICK*DYNAMITE

There are seasons in life that seem waaay complicated.

Top of the list...

JR. HIGH.

Especially if you are a girl.

Can you say DRAMA???

But there is tucked away,

between rolling eyes and mean girls,

one redeeming factor.

Before the jr. high volleyball games,

each team does chants as they warm up.

Did you do these when you were young?

It's awesome.

The coach tosses the ball for the girls 

to bump it back,

One girl starts out the chant 

with her team-mates echoing back.

Listening to it fills me with delight.

It is a picture of middle school,

the fun sing song chants of a little girl.

mixed with the confidence of older competition.

And the beauty of hearing the unity;

a team, and a place to belong,

Delightful.

My name is Josi and you know what I got??

What do you got?

I gotta team that is hotta than hot!

How hot is hot?

Bump set spike and aces too.

uh-huh uh-huh

Now let's see what "Suzy" can do!!

Our team is what? DYNAMITE!

Our team is what? DYNAMITE!

Our team is

TICK,TICK,TICK,TICK,TICK,TICK,TICK,TICK,

BOOM! DYNAMITE!!!!

Your team is what? DYNAMITE!

Your team is what? DYNAMITE!

Your team is

TICK,TICK,TICK,TICK,TICK,TICK,TICK,TICK...

Hold on, Wait a minute...

You ain't got no BOOM in it!

face painting.

Almost Halloween! 

 YAY

I just love the costume part.

But at this point Levi is too old

Josi is too cool

and Milo is on his 789th idea 

having not settled on a costume yet.

Miss Elsa is still young enough

to be under my power

in the costume department.

She is gonna be a turtle.

So, today I was planning her face painting

when I stumbled on this awesome video.

WOW.

Definitely not showing this to Milo....

He might come up with even more ideas!!

World Sight Day 2011

Today is world sight day.

According to the World Health Organization:

• 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide: 39 million are blind and 246 have low vision.
• 
  
• About 90% of the world's visually impaired live in developing countries.
• Globally, uncorrected refractive errors are the main cause of visual impairment; 
• 
  
• cataracts remain the leading cause of blindness in middle- and low-income countries.
• 
  
• An estimated 19 million children are visually impaired. Of these, 12 million children are visually impaired due to refractive errors, a condition that could be easily diagnosed and corrected. 1.4 million are irreversibly blind for the rest of their lives.

So what does this mean to us? 

 Well it means we should be bubbling over with gratitude that we live in a country 

where the medical services are available.
Without the surgery given to Elsa at 5 weeks old, she would be completely blind.

Thank you Dr. B!!!!

And in light of world sight day, at my house we will celebrate what vision we have,

But we will also celebrate what vision we don't have.

It may sound crazy but living with 

someone with visual impairments

 has reformed my concept of blindness altogether.

I realize that things could be easier for Elsa 

with perfect vision.

But what if her impairment gave her some benefits?

More valuable than the generalities...

she will be able to hear really well...etc.

It is hard to put into words.

Elsa is valuable as she is. 

 I do not long for her life to be different.

 I do not want pity.  

I do not want people to feel like her life is hard. 

 It is different, yes...

 and that difference makes her unique....

  

and that uniqueness will impact the world around her.

Click Here to read more about what you can do to celebrate World Sight Day!

on just a little side note...

I've been trying to get my previous posts labeled 

so things are sorted into nice tidy little categories

kinda like my house...

OK that is a lie.

butanyways...

just wondering what it means

when pretty much every post 

falls under the heading

"WHAT I DO TO AVOID REALITY"

?

another daily doodle

DELIRIOUS

MEDIUM:

Rapidly drying out sharpie

preschool watercolors

on drool and coffee stained paper.

Ice water.

It was midnight.  

I was laying in my bed 

but not really sleeping.  

The hassles of my life were jogging 

laps around my brain.  

Would our finances ever balance out? 

Are my teenagers coping with the pitfalls of such a complicated stage of life?

Am I giving all that I can?  

Will I ever catch up with the daily tasks 

that endlessly pile up 

before I can sweep or wash or 

fold and put away?  

Sleep didn't have a chance in the race and then an interruption.  

The squeak of my name 

which usually echoes through the night at least once from my clan.  

And I stumbled from my bed 

to solve the next crisis.  

It was Milo.  

He was thirsty.  

And he wanted ICE water.  

So I continued my half sleep walk 

to the kitchen 

and as I opened the freezer door the realization hit me like a glacier crashing into the sea...

I CAN get my baby ice water. 

Some mamas have to walk

 a mile to get their babies a drink.

  

Some mamas have to give in 

and provide dirty water that they know could make their children sick.

Some mamas have to weep 

at the begging voice of a thirsty little one for they have nothing to give. 

But I could get a clean glass, 

turn on a faucet, 

plunk in a few ice cubes 

and deliver to not even parched lips. 

And in light of this, 

what did I really have to worry about??  

It was a few weeks later that I got my copy of the book "One Thousand Gifts" 

for a study at church.

Sunday afternoon flew by as the words settled over me like a sweet salve to my soul.

You know when that happens?  

Everybody fend for yourselves...

Mama's lost in a book.

The book is written by a Mom of six.  Smothered in dirty socks and crusty dishes.  

And she begins to track all of the little things that make her life so sweet.

A journal of gratitude that shifts the focus from worry and stress 

to an acknowledgment and thankfulness to God for what is amazing, 

right before her eyes.

And so as I turned the last page, I opened my own journal and wrote the first entry:

1. Ice cold water in the middle of the night.