So ladies, I need some help. I, only a married woman of not quite two years, is in need to of wifely wisdom! And here is my question?
How do you tell you husband that he cannot have something he desperately wants?
I would normally give my hubs anything he asked for, so I promise I'm not being mean - just realistic. Allow me to elaborate!
The hubs is a golfer - and good one at that! When we bought our house I knew that part of the reason he loved it was because it is in a neighborhood that surrounds a golf course. But now, he wants a country club membership and I say "No Way Jose!" And here's why: 1) it costs a large up-front fee to become a member - $500 (that's the promotional rate - normally $1000) 2) there are monthly fees as well - $250 (without a golf cart) 3) Hubs wants a golf cart - $3000-4000 4) Monthly fees go up - $300 5) We probably can't afford that once we have kids
I thought we had been down this road before and he agreed that we didn't need this membership, so why does he think we need it now?????
So tell me wives, how do you firmly tell your hubs - NO! (Did Jesus ever address this when we were told to be submissive????)
Ok - so this is a little late, but I was honored with my first blog award not long ago from Jennifer with the Maynard Moment. So first of all, thanks Jennifer for my "One Lovely Blog" award. Second, I now get to honor someone else with the award.
For these ladies, here are the rules for the award: 1. Add the logo to your blog 2. Link to the person from whom you received this award 3. Nominate 7 or more blogs 4. Leave a message on their blog, letting them know they are "One Lovely Blog"!
Did you ever read that book when you were a kid "Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day"? Well I did, and that was my day on Friday! If you're my Facebook friend, then you say this status: I HATE 360!!! IT CAUSES WRECKS!!!!
And that is exactly what it caused for me on Friday. Since my car is in the shop for approx. two weeks, I am now driving this...a 2009 Toyota Highlander.
Because yes, I was in an accident on Friday...and all because I was trying to nice and let a lady in the entrance ramp over into my lane (if you come in the entrance ramp and don't get over, you have to exit...so I let her over). So naturally there wasn't a ton of space between the two of us...well someone slammed on their brakes and the domino affect led her to slam on her brakes...and there wasn't enough space between us, so now my car looks like this!
Granted...it the body damage could be a lot worse...but look at the first picture! Notice the fluid leaking from the bottom?!?!? Yep - that's right - I seemed to bust the radiator, crush the core support and break the AC fan....so yes, my precious car (which I have had less than 1 year) is now in the shop for approx. 2 weeks!
So that was the "terrible, horrible" part of the day. The "No good, very bad" part was when the officer gave me a ticket because I was "at fault" for following too close. However, he was very nice about it and told me that I SHOULD fight the ticket. He understood that I was actually trying to be courteous, not being an unsafe driver. Its' just the city regulation that states in a major accident (one where a car is towed - mine!), then a citation must be given!
But at least no one was hurt, and I know if could have been a lot worse.
Today, however, was EXCELLENT! Why? I held this precious baby boy for over an hour!!!
This is Cash Paul Walker. He was born Thursday. Oh my word he is so precious!
Well I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! I'm about to go to bed and get ready for another crazy week at the office!!!
When Harper Brown Stamps was born and in the NICU for such a period of time, my sister told me how desperately she wanted to start a blog so that people could pray for babies in the NICU.
After sister had Ethan, he was in the NICU for 10 days, and sister had a new-found understanding of the heartache and emotion of having a sick child. So, Sister and Kelly (of Kelly's Korner) got together recently and decided to create Miracles in the Making. A blog devoted to praying for babies in the NICU.
I encourage you to go take a look and begin praying for the babies arleady on the list: Whitt and Cash. If you, or anyone you know h as a baby in the NICU, please let email sister at amrooney at att dot net so that we can get the word out. Let us come together as a body of belivers and pray for the tiny miracles all around the world.
My bestie, Jessica, delivered her precious baby boy this morning. Cash Paul Walker arrived by c-section at 8:18 am weighing a small 6 lbs and 11 oz and is 18" long. Cash is breathing very fast and heavily, so he is in the NICU so the doctors can try to settle his breathing to normal. Unfortunately, the morphine they gave Jessica made her quite sick, so she has been sleeping most of the day. The only time she has seen Cash is when the doctor lifted him up for her to see. After that, the took him to the NICU, so Jessica is hoping to feel better soon so that she can hold her sweet baby boy.
This picture here, he was waving at Grabbie. He was so excited I came to see him!
Here is a little video of Baby Cash!
Please be in prayer for Baby Cash and Jessica so that tomorrow, Cash can be held and loved by his mommy and daddy, and big sister Riley too!
Also be in prayer for our dear friends Corey and Andy. Their sweet son Whitt was born this morning at 31 weeks. Corey was admitted to the hospital on Monday with preclampsia and the doctors didn't think it was safe to let her continue to carry him any longer.
So, Whittaker Overstreet Wetherell was born at 12:02 pm, weighing 3 lbs and 3 oz, 15 1/2" long. The doctors say that the next 72 hours are critical for Whitt's lungs. Please be in prayer over this sweet family and baby Whitt.
We had some usual spring weather here in Texas today. I was getting really close to leaving my office when Brant called and told me NOT to come home.I knew the storm was bad because Brant is not one to worry and be concerned about weather, and he knows I am safe on the road. So when he actually called to say "stay put", I knew it was bad. The storm was headed straight for the office. So, I stayed at the office and we watched (from our 48th floor office) the storm roll in. It was incredible and freaky at the same time. Here are a few pictures I took on my Iphone.
This was the craziest picture because you can actually see some rotation in the clouds. We actually saw some debris flying around and then the tornado sirens started blaring.
Well the king does not have Meningitis...PRAISE THE LORD. However, he does have an Acute Viral Infection. So the doctors doped him up and he should be home and resting soon.
If you have visited Sister's blog lately, you might see that she has done some changing and now, she is "Raising Royalty." Herself being referred to as the Queen Mother, and her hubs is the King!
Well last night, she called and was taking the king to the ER because he had not been feeling well for several days and had a debilitating headache for multiple days. Nothing seemed to help, she she took him their friend who is a dr. He was concerned that the kind might have meningitis, but could not confirm. He was given an extremely high dose of anti-inflammatory to help with the pain.
I do not have a ton of details, but apparently, he is not doing much better. I just received a text from Sister saying they were at the ER again, and doing a lumbar puncture to drain some fluids from the body.
So I write asking you to pray for the king and queen, and their four children. The Princess's 5th birthday is tomorrow and it would break her heart if her daddy were sick or in the hospital. Please pray that he begins to feel better soon, and that Sister and the kiddos have a peace about the situation.
So Kelly over at Kelly's Korner is having her weekly tour of homes and this week it is children's rooms and nurseries. No, I don't have children YET, but that doesn't mean that I don't have room ideas!!!
Luckily for me, Sister handed down Kate's custom bedding to me. It is gorgeous!!! So I can't wait to have a baby girl and decorate her room with the bedding. It has a gorgeous blend of yellows, greens, pink, red and white. I wish I had a picture, but I don't.
And yes, I have my baby boy room ideas too. I can't wait to decorate a little nautical themed room for our son. And yes, I have already shopped for beddings...is that bad????
This is the bedding I would choose if I had a little boy right now.
And I want to create a fabulous room...just like this one!
Well I was originally going to do yard work today, but Brant and I ran into some issues. So, I instead spent the day cleaning house, doing laundry and DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING! The more and more I work on digital scrapping, the more I love it! So I thought I would share the few pages the I completed.
A fried at work shared this story with me today, and I had to share it.
This is from the Boston Times:
It was the kind of tragedy no school should have to endure. Students - young children, really - wept in the hallways Thursday as word swept through the Warren-Prescott School in Charlestown that an eighth-grader, Soheil Turner, was dead, shot that morning as he waited for his bus.
So it felt strange and not quite right the next morning as members of the school choir boarded a bus for a statewide singing contest and a trip to an amusement park. Some of the students looked sad and uncertain.
Their music teacher, Olivia Thompson, felt unsettled, too. But she offered words of reassurance: It's OK to be sad, but it's also OK to have fun.
"The music you're making is part of what's good in the world, and it's important to keep doing that," Thompson told them.
What happened later that day stunned the students, their teacher, and the school. The fledgling choir from Charlestown, the only elementary school singing group in the competition, earned the highest point total, beating a roster of larger, better-established choruses from middle and high schools. They did it with a heartfelt rendition of "What a Wonderful World," on a day that, as sixth-grader Mary Evers later said, didn't feel wonderful at all.
Judges were left in awe, audience members in tears.
The choir's unexpected triumph brought needed emotional uplift to a small, close-knit school hit hard by a violent act. It also vividly illustrated the resiliency required to be a student in many urban schools and the sheer challenge that students and teachers often face simply to achieve a sense of normalcy.
"You can feel empathy and sympathy, but you also have to do what you've been trained to do," said principal Dominic Amara, sitting in his office yesterday. "You can put a plaque on the wall or a tree in the ground, and those are nice things, but the best way to honor Soheil is to be a good kid."
Turner, 15, was shot in Roxbury. The man who killed him has not been identified. The boy had attended Warren-Prescott since first grade, and many of the 437 students knew him well.
The school - a low, brick complex sandwiched into a dense neighborhood a few blocks from the Bunker Hill Monument - offered kindergarten through sixth grade until three years ago, when it added grades seven and eight. "We get to know the kids and want to keep them," said Amara. Pots of pansies sit by the front door; students in all grades wear uniforms, matching navy-blue polo shirts. The school motto is "Persist and Prevail."
The choir members range from kindergartners to teenagers. When the group began four years ago, anyone could join; now, students must audition. Practices are held after school on Mondays, when the 39 students cram onto risers in a small room off the auditorium.
They worked for months on two songs for the Music in the Parks competition, held at the Six Flags New England theme park in Agawam. They were especially proud of "What a Wonderful World," their finale, with two student accompanists, on piano and trumpet, and a voice solo by a third-grader.
Then, the day before the trip, came news of Turner's death. Students who knew him were devastated; younger children were scared and confused.
"I didn't feel like singing," said Evers, the 12-year-old. "I said to my friend it's not such a wonderful world."
Elizabeth Pardy, another sixth-grader, sought a way to take solace in the music.
"Watching my friends lose someone was very upsetting," she said. "But then I thought, 'I'll sing for Soheil,' and that made me feel better."
The same thought came to Brandy Giles, 13.
"It was hard to see everyone crying," she said. "But I thought we shouldn't stop, that he would want us to keep going. People were expecting to hear this beautiful sound. If we didn't put our whole heart into it, it wouldn't be as joyful."
Standing onstage that morning, they said, they felt nervous, worried by the competition, which included middle school choirs from Georgetown and Tewksbury, but ready to do Soheil proud.
Watching from the audience, parent John Strachan felt swept by emotion.
"Just to think about what they were going through and to see them walk out onstage was this amazing dichotomy," he said.
The judges recorded their critique of each choir. On the tape sent home with Warren-Prescott, one judge pauses to listen, then remarks, "This is what music should be," according to Thompson.
The Charlestown choir "demonstrated a wonderful sense of discipline, as well as a true love of music-making," the judge, Frank Ward Jr., wrote in an e-mail. "It was a very satisfying and enjoyable performance from such a young group of students."
The choir took home two trophies, for best elementary and best middle school choir, and two of its soloists, Chloe Shea and Emily Ringrose, won individual prizes. When the winners were announced, "all the girls were screaming so much it hurt my ears," said choir member Declan Coleman, 9.
Yesterday, the buzz about the choir was still spreading through the school. Students passing the main office between classes bent low to brush the shiny trophies with their fingers, peering closely at a photo of the beaming choir members.
Parents plan to pitch in to fix up the school's display case for the new prizes.
"It's phenomenal what they did, and it's something special about kids," Amara said. "If you had adults in this kind of trauma, I doubt they could perform as well."
I'm terribly sorry it has taken me so long to post. Brant and I have been staying with my MeMe this week and she doesn't have Internet or I would have posted much sooner.
First all, thank you for the several of you who emailed and asked about Brant''s grandfather. We have felt you prayers, and although it has been a difficult week, the Lord has been very near and present every step of the way.
However, on Tuesday morning, Grandaddy began his "party with Jesus", as Brant called it. An MRI on Monday showed that he had broken his neck and spinal cord, as well as crushed the C3, 4, and 5 discs on the spine. These are the discs that control your diaphram, and it told us that he would never be able to breath on his own again. We also found out that Grandaddy was paralyzed.
Grandaddy had a very strong desire to not have any heroic measures to keep him living. Ever since the day I met him, I have known about his desire to be in heaven with the love of his life, Irene and his Father. Every person at his bedside knew that he would never want to continue on living in a vegetative and paralytic state. After a very rough night on Monday, his heart rate and blood pressure could not be maintained and were dipping very low. So the decision was made to let him go be with the two people he loved most: his savior and his beautiful bride.
We gathered by his bedside, prayed and sang of him as we watched him leave this earth. It was heartbreaking and one of the hardest things I have ever done in all my life. But as sad as the day was, I can tell you that there was joy and an incredible peace in his hospital room. We knew that he was dancing with his wife and singing praises to his Lord.
Tomorrow, we will lay Tommie Bonner Stretch to rest. I can honestly say that I have never heard so many people describe someone as "a very special, Godly man." I have heard stories about a man that I wish I could have known longer. For the past 4 years he has treated me as one of his own grandchildren and I have loved him dearly. Pray for Brant's family tomorrow as they say one last "good-bye" to a father, a grandfather, a friend, and a mentor. This has been such a difficult journey, and we know that it is not over. There will be many more tears and days of sorrow, but we know that we will see him again.
Brant just received a phone call that his Grandaddy was just in a very serious car accident. Kristi, Brant's sister, said that all we know right now is that his car flipped over on the way home from church and that he has severe head and neck injuries. They are CareFlight'ing him to LSU Medical Center (he lives in a small town called Mendon, LA).
Grandaddy has been an incredible mentor and role model from Brant. Of all people my husband knows, no person has changed his life like his grandfather. The picture above, if you couldn't tell, is Brant, his mother and Grandaddy on the day of our wedding.
Please pray for that the Lord's will is done. Although we want Grandaddy to make a full recovery and life many more years, we also know that the situation if very serious. Pray for our family and that decisions can be make with the love and understanding.
Brant is currently writing one of his last papers in the exhausting adventure to receiving a Master's Degree. Trust me, we will be having quite the shindig in August to celebrate, but as for now, we are writing. And yes, I say "we" because any wife that has had a husband getting a Master's degree knows that the degree is truly half hers!
But yes, I have been helping Brant research his paper and helping me find the ten million sources he needs. Now I have never been a C.S. Lewis fan, but I have to say that I am becoming one. Today in helping Brant gather some material for his paper, I was reading Mere Christianity, Chapter 4: Good Infection.
And I read a very profound, and interesting statement that has me in quite a bit of thought.
I said...that God is a being which contains three Persons while remaining one Being...But as soon as I begin trying to explain how these Persons are connected I hate to use words which make it sound as if one of them was there before the other. The First Person is called Father and the Second is the Son. We say that the First begets or produces the second; we call it "begetting" no "making", because what He produces is of the same kind as Himself. In that way the word Father is theonly word to use. But unfortunately it suggests that He is there first - just as a human father exists before his son. But that is not so. There is no before and after about it. And that is why I think it important to make clear how one thing can be the source, or cause, or origin, of another without being there before it.
Now for me, here was the kicker...
The Son exists because the Father exists; but there never was a time before the Father produced the Son.
Ok - so maybe you think this pointless, or complete nonsense, but to me, this is profound. I have always believed in the Trinity....God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit...all in one Being, but to think that there has NEVER been a time when there was one without the other. Yes, one exists because of the other, but one never created the other - they just ARE.
For me, this profound thought simply resonates this:
I SERVE AN AMAZING GOD!
Yes, there are plenty of things about God that I do not understand, but I do know this...He is Almighty...one that non can fully comprehend.
Right now, anyone who lives in Texas has been hearing major concerns over th Swine Flu. Although it is a rare, and completely freaky thing going on, I received this email from a friend today and wanted to share.
In a nutshell, to help protect yourself from the Swine Flu,
Wash your hands with soap and water
Don't touch your mouth
Go to the doctor if you have any symptoms of the flu
