Lately I've been imagining life without a delete button. What would the world look like if I couldn't edit or sensor myself? I went through and deleted all my unposted blogs the other day. Trust me, they were unposted for a reason. I think one discussed the benefits of well fitting jeans...how is that for some golden nuggets of blogdom?

Things have felt cloudy lately. And then I hear myself saying, "Parker, your underwear is not a pocket" and the metaphorical sun breaks through for moment. I have a great life. Seriously. We have our rougher patches, but if I can keep my eyes firmly fixed to the hope I have in Christ the clouds don't feel so heavy or even relevant except to only mold me more like God.

Granted, that is a big "if." I screw the focus thing up constantly. I get whiney, selfish, and indulgent (says the woman who is currently eating her weight in breadsticks). Thank God for His mercy every day, and for the delete button.

I cough...therefore I rest not

I used to think I did my best thinking into the late/early hours of the day. All a lie. I'm only delusional during those hours. The last hour I have contemplated why I find the squeaky shoes in college and NBA games so grating, what it would feel like if I did in fact cough up a lung, and why the word "bowel" is such a nasty word. God help me if this is my cream of the crop thinking.

Speaking of God and words...

Last year sometime I was haunted by Paul's exortation to not swear by anything but to let your yeses be yeses and your nos be nos (paraphrase mine). That is really hard to do. Simply yes and simply no. No abundance of excuses or apologies, no backtracking or overstating. This has also caused me to look more carefully at my language usage. Tonight someone on facebook posted a picture of her newly aquired engagemeng ring. I left a comment saying, "I cannot wait to hear the story." Then I realized it was a lie. The truth is I am very content to wait and hear the story. I'm not in a rush at all.

So I deleted it and wrote something honest and still hopefully conveyed my excitement. The statement "I am in no rush to hear your story" doesn't translate well for a FB comment.

I need to learn some more words. The words I use are plain. Except for the word "droolio." That's a good one. I made it up. It usually follows the word, "coolio" which is also made up. I use those words quite a bit.

True story, 'cause I'm coolio droolio like that.

I need to get more sleep.

Ode to Parker

Parker is getting ripped off. The poor beauty is 3 and I have only documented her life a couple of times. And one of those times I was trying to sell her. We were in Florida in the beginning of February visiting my parents, and Dan and I left the kids with mom and dad while we skipped off to Miami Beach for a few days, and then skipped off again on a cruise for a few more days. The day we got back from all of our skipping we had to pack up and leave to go back home. I was tired and cranky and still dizzy from our cruise and Parker was annoying. I thought I was handling it well until my mom looked at me and said, "If you roll your eyes at your daughter one more time we will keep her for you."

Oops. I mumbled some sort of apology and continued to pack the car.

Here is the official word on my girl. She likes pink. She is an extremely messy eater-it is almost an artform for her. She hits her brother when he annoys her and then turns around, extends her arms and says, "huggie?" She is crazy cool. Her expressions, her dance moves, her singing, they exude a strong rooted spirit of joy. She disobeys me and in the next split second is asking "Are you happy mama?" Parker is sparkly.

I love my girl.

And darling, if you read this one day, I'm sorry that grandma had to threaten to keep you for me to snap out of my snarly attitude. Grandma has a daughter too...and apparently she still needs to be corrected by mom occasionally.