Sunday, July 22, 2012
Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: Just a little unfriendly competition
Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: Just a little unfriendly competition: I have not won a board game, video game, card game, or ANY type of game against my husband in 20 years. If I think about it beyond 5 seconds...
Just a little unfriendly competition
I have not won a board game, video game, card game, or ANY type of game against my husband in 20 years. If I think about it beyond 5 seconds my whole focus and goal in life becomes to beat him at something. Anything. But I have serious bad luck when it comes to games. Four of us play Yahtzee tonight. But in my head its all about me and Chris and me beating him. My mom and Sarah are non existent in this game. I get a yahtzee, I don't have to put 0's in any of my spaces. I am doing a happy dance on the table. Chris does NOT get a yahtzee, he has to put a 0 in his large straight and he STILL beats me by 2 points. In fact, I come in last place among the four of us playing. Then right after that, me and Sarah play and she gets 4 yahtzee's! Who gets 4 yahtzee's in one game?!?! (I'm taking back her Christmas presents!)
Jonathan feels my pain. He has had some unfriendly competition with his dad also. Both of them revert back to a couple of 5 year olds who call each other "cheater!" So for a nano second he has a ounce of compassion for his mother. He is seriously trying to figure out something that I could beat Chris in. He starts coming up with a plan to teach me how to improve my skills in ping pong. He tells me we are going to practice the entire week Chris is at children's camp so when he comes back I can beat him. By the tone in his voice and the crazed look in his eyes I'm thinking he really means it. He starts taping magic markers standing up straight to our dining room table. (This is the same dining room table that nail polish remover has been spilled on, deep scratches mysteriously are in, rings from water glasses abound etc... so I am way past caring about some scotch tape.) Then he strings all this yarn between the two markers. He finds old DS game boxes and tapes handles to them. Then he braves our wasp infested shed in the dark, with just the light of his cell phone to find some old plastic golf ball. He comes in, lays it all on the table and says, "mom, training begins NOW!"
"My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy and gladness may be of full measure and complete and overflowing." John 15:11
Jonathan feels my pain. He has had some unfriendly competition with his dad also. Both of them revert back to a couple of 5 year olds who call each other "cheater!" So for a nano second he has a ounce of compassion for his mother. He is seriously trying to figure out something that I could beat Chris in. He starts coming up with a plan to teach me how to improve my skills in ping pong. He tells me we are going to practice the entire week Chris is at children's camp so when he comes back I can beat him. By the tone in his voice and the crazed look in his eyes I'm thinking he really means it. He starts taping magic markers standing up straight to our dining room table. (This is the same dining room table that nail polish remover has been spilled on, deep scratches mysteriously are in, rings from water glasses abound etc... so I am way past caring about some scotch tape.) Then he strings all this yarn between the two markers. He finds old DS game boxes and tapes handles to them. Then he braves our wasp infested shed in the dark, with just the light of his cell phone to find some old plastic golf ball. He comes in, lays it all on the table and says, "mom, training begins NOW!"
Oh. my. goodness. He is serious. I will join him in Ping Pong boot camp tomorrow. (Mind you, we don't even own a ping pong table.) Even though yes, I would love to beat Chris in some ping pong - tonight, I love my sleep. Jonathan and Sarah actually played some ping pong with what he rigged - I was quite impressed with his invention and enjoyed hearing the laughter as plastic cases were hitting a dented ball.
"My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy and gladness may be of full measure and complete and overflowing." John 15:11
Can I pray, "Lord, my gladness would be complete if I could just beat Chris in any game just ONE TIME -please Lord? You understand that this is about to become an out of control obsession in which I could possibly end up on the 5:00 news for?..." Okay, I won't pray that. I am thankful tonight for laughter in my family. Winning or losing, if there is laughter and love what more do I need?
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: Cow skulls and kids: not for sale
Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: Cow skulls and kids: not for sale: I am not a garage sale person. Looking in my cabinets you would think I spend my free time scouting garage sales for mismatched tupperware, ...
Cow skulls and kids: not for sale
I am not a garage sale person. Looking in my cabinets you would think I spend my free time scouting garage sales for mismatched tupperware, cracked mugs that say "I love South Dakota" etc... A few weeks ago I thought I would be ambitious and look for some garage sales so I could possibly find a push toy for Elisabeth. This story I am about to tell you is true. Only if you live in Mansfield will you actually believe it. I get up early on a Saturday (Actually E got me up, I would NEVER willfullly wake up early on a Saturday.) I follow these bright yellow signs out on a country highway. I get excited because I think whoever put these nice signs out must have a really big garage sale. The signs lead me about 5 miles out of town, and then down a dirt road, and then down a gravel driveway that winds back into the woods. I'm starting to get a little nervous wondering if I'm falling into some serial killer's trap and I will end up in their freezer. I pass an abandoned house and then I see the garage sale sign marking the supposed house - but then right past the sign I see a LARGE COW SKULL, then several more cow skulls lining this long driveway (I have yet to see the house.) Then a sign that says "Smile, you are on a video camera." Why I did not turn around instantly I do not know - I just let my heart beat out of my chest and wandered deeper into the cow graveyard...
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I decide to do a garage sale myself a couple weeks ago. I've learned that 95% of people who come to garage sales in Mansfield only do so just to resell it in their garage sale. Mansfield is like a rotating Good Will store. How I accumulate so much stuff I do not know. Over spring break we load a trailer full of junk from our house to take to the dump. And what do you know - someone drove buy, stopped and asked if he could pick stuff off our trailer. He practically picked it clean. And then he asked if we'd sell our house. No joke.
When I start to clean out our house for the garage sale the dilemna was where to put it. Our garage was too full of everything that isn't supposed to be in a garage according to my husband. I start to load it in bathtub #1, then I fill up a second bathtub...when my husband came home he took one look and was like, "what the heck?" I told him - "It's our garage sale!" (luckily we have a seperate shower.)
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Once the bathtubs were full I moved to the dining room table. You'd think there was nothing left in my house, but I really think we have enough stuff for about 3 garage sales.
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The minute you start to move stuff to your front yard you have your people that come before you even open, and your people that want to buy your stuff that's NOT for sale. (Last garage sale I sold our kitchen table that I kept my money box on - hubby was not happy). I had so many strange people this time around. I had people offer to buy my dog, my kid, asked me to fix their cell phone, ask for the empty boxes in my garage, asked if I'd come down on from my original price of a dime. So after a day of dealing with the crazies in the 105 degree heat, the next day anyone that walked up I told them - this side everything's a quarter, this side everything's a dime. That was enough to send Mansfield garage sellers into a buying frenzy - filling up boxes, literally loading down their vehicles in which they were sitting ON TOP of my stuff. I got a little nostalgic over some of the baby clothes I had to let go - I joined the Crazies and actually asked if I could hug a dress before I let it go. I guess I got caught up in the insanity and by that time the sun had fried my brain. Its good to let go of stuff - we can't take it with us and decluttering leaves us with a little more calm in the house. Whom am I kidding - "calm" is not gonna happen in this house for a really long time. And I guess if I really want some some of my stuff back - I just need to go to the garage sale a few houses down...
Matthew 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also..." Things are just things. Its okay to let them go. Even to the crazy dog lady who might want to use your darling baby clothes as a dress for her beloved pooch, even to the person who will mark it up twice what they paid to resell it. If you have Jesus, you have everything you need.
Finally I see a flat bed trailer of what I am assuming they were advertising as their garage sale - with little bitty garden tomotoes with worms crawling through them, some old perfume bottles, and apparantly this guys personal art that he painted. The only thing that people would have bought would probably have been those dard cow heads but those weren't for sale, not the tomatoes that had looked like the ones sitting in the bottom of my fridge for the last month. Oh yes that was so worth the half tank of gas I wasted, possible heart attack, and a really good story to tell.I decide to do a garage sale myself a couple weeks ago. I've learned that 95% of people who come to garage sales in Mansfield only do so just to resell it in their garage sale. Mansfield is like a rotating Good Will store. How I accumulate so much stuff I do not know. Over spring break we load a trailer full of junk from our house to take to the dump. And what do you know - someone drove buy, stopped and asked if he could pick stuff off our trailer. He practically picked it clean. And then he asked if we'd sell our house. No joke.
When I start to clean out our house for the garage sale the dilemna was where to put it. Our garage was too full of everything that isn't supposed to be in a garage according to my husband. I start to load it in bathtub #1, then I fill up a second bathtub...when my husband came home he took one look and was like, "what the heck?" I told him - "It's our garage sale!" (luckily we have a seperate shower.)
Once the bathtubs were full I moved to the dining room table. You'd think there was nothing left in my house, but I really think we have enough stuff for about 3 garage sales.
The minute you start to move stuff to your front yard you have your people that come before you even open, and your people that want to buy your stuff that's NOT for sale. (Last garage sale I sold our kitchen table that I kept my money box on - hubby was not happy). I had so many strange people this time around. I had people offer to buy my dog, my kid, asked me to fix their cell phone, ask for the empty boxes in my garage, asked if I'd come down on from my original price of a dime. So after a day of dealing with the crazies in the 105 degree heat, the next day anyone that walked up I told them - this side everything's a quarter, this side everything's a dime. That was enough to send Mansfield garage sellers into a buying frenzy - filling up boxes, literally loading down their vehicles in which they were sitting ON TOP of my stuff. I got a little nostalgic over some of the baby clothes I had to let go - I joined the Crazies and actually asked if I could hug a dress before I let it go. I guess I got caught up in the insanity and by that time the sun had fried my brain. Its good to let go of stuff - we can't take it with us and decluttering leaves us with a little more calm in the house. Whom am I kidding - "calm" is not gonna happen in this house for a really long time. And I guess if I really want some some of my stuff back - I just need to go to the garage sale a few houses down...
Matthew 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also..." Things are just things. Its okay to let them go. Even to the crazy dog lady who might want to use your darling baby clothes as a dress for her beloved pooch, even to the person who will mark it up twice what they paid to resell it. If you have Jesus, you have everything you need.
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