My real thoughts

Sitting in starbucks at a little 2 seat table. Older lady sits down at the table in front of mine. She scoots her chair in and bumps into the chair where I have my laptop bag and squishes it closer to my table. Then, she looks at the bag and scoots her chair in a little more and squishes the bag closer to the table. Why?

There are 2 empty tables on the other side of us.
She could move the other way and move the table out a little more.

Why does this bug me so much?

I am staring at the back of her head and wondering what she would think if she knew that I was blogging about this.

Does it bug me because of past interactions I have had with her? The ones where she told me that people in the south were dumb to live where there are tornadoes.

I wonder what I will do if she pushes in my stinking chair one more time.

I remember the man behind me that I have been talking to for weeks and building a relationship with. He is far from Jesus and it's complicated.

What if I yelled at her when she pushes my chair again(we all know it's gonna happen)? What would guy behind me think?

I've been on a roll..

I've been really blogging a lot lately. It almost seems like the more I blog, the easier it is to think of more blogs.

I was driving to Modesto today and thinking of blog ideas. They were just coming to me like crazy.

I thought of some really awesome blog ideas today.

Guess what? I can't think of any of those great ideas now.

I thought maybe if I just started writing some of those ideas would come back to me.

Hmmm.....

How about if we revisit the awesome deal I got on green beans from Amazon?



I reguarly read blogs about saving money. My favorite ones highlight deals on Amazon.

Recently, there was a post about a great deal on green beans. It was 12 cans of green beans for $7.67. Shipped to your house. That's a pretty good deal.

Steven gets all emails every time I order something from Amazon. He calls me and says things like, "why do we need 12 cans of green beans?".

I respond with good answers like, "duh, cause it was a great deal."

When the green beans arrived,a couple of them were dented. So, I emailed amazon and they shipped 12 more cans to me. So, I got 24 cans of green beans for $7.67.

That's awesome, right? I think it's like 31 cents per can.

Yes, these are the things that make me happy now.

It makes Steven roll his eyes. Especially when he gets emails from Amazon regarding my good deals.

Tonight, I ordered 6 glue sticks for a dollar from amazon.

The best part of this deal is Steven's in Colorado and can't check his email.

Our not so awesome weekend...

I have to say that I thought it was gonna be a good one. Owen's birthday party, Steven home for most of the weekend, pretty weather. Yea, not so much.

It started with a weird phone call from a student that got me in a funky mood on Friday morning.
I just couldn't get over it. It ended up not being a big deal, but I'm just in a weird place with my job. I love it most days. I just feel a little burnt out right now from it. It never ends, so there's not a good break and regroup time from it.

On Saturday morning, we were outside with the kids watching them play. Steven noticed some people pulling weeds from around the church. It was odd cause we didn't recognize anyone.

Steven finally realized that it was members of a local church. They pick projects around town and just help people. It was really nice of them. They pulled some weeds and picked up around the parking lot. Just stuff that we hadn't gotten a chance to do. I noticed that they picked up some trash from in front of our house. Our house is a very busy spot for walkers from the apartments to the park. So, there's always random trash that is dropped in the yard.

I went outside a little while later to water my plants. Steven and I planted zinnia seeds in the front bed about a month ago. We weeded and got rid of the old stuff there and I have been watering about twice a day for a month in the front bed.

Guess what was gone? My seedlings. They had just started to poke up their heads from the soil. I guess the volunteers thought that they were weeds and pulled them. They were all gone.

I know they are just plants. But, I lost it. Like had to go back to bed and put my head under the covers. I was so proud of those little seeds. They were ripped up.

I wasn't mad. I knew that they were just being helpful.

The rest of Saturday was uneventful. Steven had a wedding. Patrick and Maggie played outside most of the day. Patrick put on Steven's hat (he always puts it on backwards) and said "I Daddy. I dri(drive) tru (truck)." And walked towards Steven's truck. It was pretty cute.

After church, it was raining, so Maggie made a big tent. She wanted me to get in it with her. I laid down and she decided to put up a flashlight with scotch tape in the top of it. It fell and jammed into the side of my temple. It hurts so bad!

After Patrick woke up, we went back outside. He loves it out there. Maggie was swinging and eating a cookie. She swallowed her bite of cookie and accidentally swallowed her tooth. She was hysterically upset. I convinced her that the tooth fairy would still bring her some money.

She wrote a great letter to the tooth fairy that ended with "Can you still bring me my money?".

Tonight, we went to OSH and got some pretty geraniums for the front yard. We had the best ride there and home. Patrick was doing his arm dancing to Taylor Swift. I tried to get it on video. He is a great arm dancer! We sang and drove around for a while. We saw a double rainbow on the way home and where it started and ended. Just like the video!

When we got to our house, Patrick and Maggie both said, "NO". They were having a good family moment. I guess the weekend ended on a high note?

Sunday night random list

1. Maggie called Rachel today and Rachel texted her back. It said, "I love you, Maggie moomer and I love my patty cakes." Isn't that a cute nickname for Patrick? I really like that. I wish that Patrick knew Rachel and all of the Williamson family better. I think they would love him. While we were visiting Rachel in the hospital this summer, Patrick met them for a few minutes. He had Nonnie's hat on his head immediately!

2. I took Maggie on a girl date this afternoon. It's one of our Sunday afternoon traditions. We go get a drink and relax and talk without distractions. It was very nice. The only bad part about sitting at Starbucks was that we didn't have a blanket and it was so cold in there.

3. We remembered that Maggie had a gift card to Target that Miss Ilda gave her to celebrate being a big sister. We went to Target to spend it after we had a Starbucks drink. She looked all through the toys, but decided on a new outfit. It is very cute and very Maggie. She looks super in green. I guess this is a sign of being grown up that she doesn't want a toy, but would prefer a new outfit.

4. We picked out a new truck for Patrick while we were there. It was a fire truck that has a siren. This was the ultimate in cool toys for Patrick. It's a "Choo choo" and it's a truck. Seriously awesome.

5. Steven spoke at another church this morning. It was so interesting to not be at our church this weekend. But, I loved hearing him in a different setting.

6. I have a lot of classes right now. Cha ching.

7. My husband is really trying to find some tax deducts. He just asked me if I was blind. I'm not, by the way.

8. Maggie got a new mattress this weekend. She has my daybed from when I was younger. The last time I got on her mattress, I felt the springs in her mattress. I started calculating that the mattress was at least 20 years old. It could be older, I'm not sure. I'm not going to even think about the dust mites in that thing. It was hauled away and replaced on Saturday morning. It's nice. I wanna new mattress!!!

9. We played scene it at Robert and Amanda's house. I'm (humbly) really, really good at wheel of fortune, which was a type of puzzle during the game. I think I should apply to be on the show. I could make tons of money and win fabulous prizes.

My blog

I started looking around at my blog. I had forgotten some of my older posts around 2008, so I was rereading them. I was tempted several times to comment on my own blog. Is that weird? Should I comment to myself? It's kind of like commenting to the "old version of Beth". Does that make me schizophrenic? What if I could tell myself some important news about the future?

In other related news, Patrick slept approximately 15 minutes last night. He yelled loudly for most of the night. Maggie came into our room around 2:30 to complain about it. She has been working on staying in her bed all night and was surprised when I climbed in bed with her at that point. It was the only way that I could get some sleep because she had access to the sound machine. We just turned it up super loud to drown out the yelling. I had changed him, given him milk and rocked him several times. He just wasn't interested in sleeping last night.

That story may give you some background as to my random questions that I asked at the start of this blog.

So, two questions for you:

1. Should I comment on my old blog posts?
2. Why did Patrick not want to sleep last night?

Now, it's 9 p.m. and I'm going to bed.

Wal*Mart stranger

Yesterday, I went to Wal*Mart to get some milk. As I walked down an aisle, I saw a lady that looked vaguely familiar. It's weird that people are starting to look familiar to me here. I guess I never thought that I would start to recognize people while I was out. In LaGrange, going to Wal*Mart ensured that you would see someone you knew!

As I came up to this lady, she looked like a girl that I knew from MOPS when we first moved here. I looked at her for a minute because this lady had darker hair than I remembered. As I walked by, she said, "HEY! How are you doing?".

So, I chatted with her for a minute because it must have been that girl from MOPS. I told her that she looked different and I almost didn't recognize her with her new hair do. It looked like a different color than I remembered. She said, "oh, cause it's longer?".

This was about 33.5 seconds into the conversation, I realized that I HAD NO IDEA WHO THIS LADY WAS!

I felt panicked. How was I going to get out of this conversation? I couldn't find the words to tell her that I just realized that I didn't know who she was. I mean, we had been talking for a few minutes.

She asked me what was new in my life. I mumbled something about Maggie and school and tried to gauge her reaction. Nothing. Did she know me?

Crap. I had to get outta there. I said it was nice to see her (again?) and walked away. Then, I started laughing. What a bizarre interaction.

So, if you see me at Wal*Mart, (why was I there anyway?)I may or may not talk to you. I'm a little gun shy now!

Meeting Jesus in the coffee shop

Today there was a man walking back and forth in front of the coffee shop this afternoon. He is one of those guys that you notice because he is kind of dirty looking and mumbling to himself. He walked back and forth several times in front of the store.

He came in the store and started asking me about my computer. I guess I should have thought about that when I ordered a pink laptop. I get so many comments about it.

He asked me a lot of random questions that didn't really make sense. As I was trying to answer him, I felt an urge to pray for him. I normally would be scared and shaken by these kind of conversations. But, I just felt really bad for him. He was mentally disturbed but wasn't harmful.

When I see guys like this (and I have been noticing a lot of people walking in front of my house lately who are talking to themselves), I wonder what happened. How did they fall through the cracks of normal society? How could we really help them? Do they want to be helped or is it our guilt that makes us want to help them? How would Christ truly treat someone like this?

So, umm...

1. Today was pretty bad. We were supposed to meet with our social worker. I spent all night on Saturday working on a scrapbook that was due at our meeting on Monday. Guess what? She was sick and not in the building. Guess when they told us? 45 minutes after we waited in the waiting room. We watched a little bitty bitty baby (like days old) being dropped off in the lobby by a guy. He had to go get someone else so he just left the baby with the scattered secretary. She didn't know what to do. I told her that I would watch the baby for her. So, Maggie and I awwed over the tiny baby. We watched a foster mom drop off a baby with her daddy. It was so awkward. The kid was hysterically upset about being left. It was an uncomfortable scene.

2. Tomorrow is Maggie's first day of school. She is so excited. I will post pictures of her new back to school outfit. While she is in school, our new MOPS group is meeting at our newly renovated church to discuss last minute details before our first meeting on Wednesday.

3. Then, I have to work! So, my MOPS friends will be at my house without me! They are going to price stuff for the garage sale that is at our house on Friday.

4. I'm waiting for Jon Stewart to come on. I can't wait to get his reaction to the DNC tonight.

5. One more thing. I have the hardest time with links, but this is a good one. Sarah posted it first! http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2008/08/donald_miller_t.html

The other things

I remembered what I forgot.

1. Willie is walking on his back leg.WOOT. Willie got really hurt in the backyard during clean up day at church. We had a babysitter over here and about 2.5 million kids over here playing. Willie got hurt. After 2 weeks of limping, we took him to the doctor. After an X-ray, we found out that he had torn his ACL. We could have surgery to fix it but it was very expensive. We decided not to have it. It was a really hard decision. Well, today, he has started putting weight on it again. He's acting like a puppy. Like he really feels better. He sometimes just tiptoes on it, but he seems to feel better. I'm so happy.

2. We are going to DW (have I mentioned that?!) and on Sunday, one of my best friends from Georgia College, Laura, will be there! She and Sam are going on a weekend trip to DW, so we are going to meet them at the Rainforest Cafe. Maggie is so excited to meet her. I have told Maggie about Laura and she was so happy when I told her today. I can feel the excitement building and building in Maggie! It's going to be so much fun to catch up with Laura!

A smattering of things

I love going back and reading these Maggie quotes. So, I have to be sure to write them down.

I told Maggie yesterday that we were going to Disney. Yeah, I caved. She is pretty stinking excited. Then, I told her about the shoes. She told me that I was the best mommy ever. awwww

We had our last MOPS meeting of the year. I love MOPS so much. We had a spa day and I got my eyebrows waxed for the first time ever. It didn't hurt too bad. Maybe like a band aid being ripped off my face.Then, they cut my hair. It's a shorter version of my haircut. Maggie brought a gift card for her Moppets worker, too.

Yesterday, she had dance classes with Miss Nik Nak. She was complaining about something hurting. Maggie told me that Nikki prayed for her during dance class.How sweet!

I watch my Roomba vacuum a lot. Steven bought it for me during a woot off. I have been begging for one for about 3 years now.

I ran to Starbucks for much needed caffeine. I haven't been going to bed at night and getting up too early and on the go all day long. Maggie called me as soon as I left the door. Guess what? She was "telling" on Daddy again. It was hilarious.

There's something else that I wanted to say, but my head isn't fully functioning.