13 for thursday (except it is sunday)

hard to post without innerwebs.....

13 creepiest things of all time

1. Bright red lipstick on very old ladies
2. Clowns
3. Old broken baby dolls
4. Old cars with headlights that look like glowing eyeballs
5. Chucky
6. Ventriloquist dummies
7. Rottweilers (sorry, can't love them)
8. The woods at night
9.  Abandoned motels
10.  Old military surplus and supplies
11.  Old wheelchairs
12.  An empty school (especially at night)
13. The "paintroom" at Brenau Women's college.

thirteen

1.  Getting ready to go to Georgia.....
2.  I am excited to see my family, nervous about the long drive and looking forward to the Cracker Barrel.
3.  I do plan to meet up with friends, too.
4.  Mostly excited about seeing my sister!
5.  We don't get to talk as much as we used to, and I miss that.
6.  Some of it is because I just don't use the phone as much since my hearing has started going....
7.  I don't like to admit that I can't hear..... I used to blame the phone, now I know it is me.
8.  I hate getting older....
9.  I also hate not knowing what to do with my hair.
10. No one ever tells me they like my hair.  No one ever tells me they hate it.
11. Until I cut it and then either folks liked it the way it was, or they tell me they are so glad I don't have that "man" hair any more.....
12.   The biggest critic, however, is the person with the worst hair, lol.
13.  Maybe I will just buy some wigs.........

deep thoughts

I have so many thoughts knocking about in my head, that I feel the need to write them down.  I would go via facebook, but I am a coward.  I worry about what some of my "friends" who do not share my thoughts would think.  I wonder what parents of former students would think....... but I need to share and vent.

Trayvon Martin's death is a tragedy and a loss.  However, what would people be saying if things had gone differently.  What if George Zimmerman was the one who was dead instead?  What then?  Would anyone even care? Perhaps not, but since things went horribly wrong, this is what we are left with.

I am not saying Mr. Zimmerman was right in his actions.  I am not defending Trayvon. Both were in the wrong place at the wrong time and made bad choices.  One is dead and the other must live with regret.  My problem lies in how we are dealing with the aftermath of it all.  I have too many friends that are calling GM a stalker.  "What do I tell my child?" they ask.  Well, I'm gonna tell ya.  The same thing I will tell mine, and the same thing TM's should have told him.

1. You are young.  Right or wrong adults will make assumptions about you.  Be mindful of how you present your self. Try not to travel alone, especially after dark.

2.  If someone is following you or bothering you, call 911, then call me or dad.  Tell the person you have done so, then try to get to a more public place.

3.  You do not owe any explanation, but do not convey guilt. DO not make first move, but fight back if needed.

Life is not fair, the world is not fair.  I have been stopped by the police (for being white in the wrong neighborhood, for parking my car near a used car lot and walking to a friend's apartment, for drinking an ibc root beer in a park.......).  I have been asked to leave stores, I have been refused service, I have been stalked, I have been sexually harassed, I have been raped......  ALL BECAUSE OF HOW I LOOK!  Yes, I do have certain advantages due to my race. But I have also faced disadvantages for being white. For being nice. For being small. For being female.  The best thing you can do is be a good person, watch your back and try to not make foolish, emotional driven choices in the face of danger.  Know that a person's first impression of you might not be a positive one.

massaman moo (thai pork curry)

*this was a "freezer" meal......

2 pound pork tenderloin, cut into chunks
1 can petite diced tomatoes
1/4 cup curry paste
salt and pepper
1 rutabaga (peeled and cut into chunks)
1 can lite coconut milk
2 tbl butter

Combine pork with tomatoes, curry paste and salt and pepper.  (at this point I put it all in a freezer bag and froze it.  If cooking it now, go ahead and put it in the slow cooker).  

Place thawed pork into slow cooker, add rutabaga, coconut milk and butter.  Cook on low for 7 hours.  Turn slow cooker up to high. Add 2 tbl of corn starch to 1 cup of cold water and mix well. Stir into the pork mixture. Cook on high for an additional 30 minutes.  Serve over rice.

**my 13 year old thought the rutabaga was potato, and I kept my mouth shut!

monday

Monday after a long, busy weekend...... I really wanted to get things back on track.  Thankfully, all the cleaning I have done in the past few weeks paid off....

Because I had little clutter, in under an hour I had watered my plants, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the cat box, got dinner into the crock pot, vacuumed the entire living room (including the sofa and chair) and mopped the dining room..... Now I am having a deserved cup of coffee before I go pack lunches and get the washing machine going.

I am glad to begin having some of the peace that comes with a clean home.  Still have a long way to go, and it will never really be finished.  I get that, but I am committed to staying on top of it all.  I think I am going to revisit the Mary/Martha project.

THURSDAY!

1.  I am amazed I have kept my sanity this summer.
2.  The organizing has helped, but I am not gonna lie.....
3.  I am worried.
4.  I know I shouldn't be.  Everything works out in the end.
5.  Matthew 6:25-27  “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
6. That kind of sums it up.

7.  Now if I can find a way to not hate everyone.....

8.  and win the battle of fleas and ants.

9.  I still have a very long to do list- my bedroom is proving to be the most difficult room of the house.

10. Every time I think I have made progress, it turns into a junk pile again.

11.  Sometimes I think it becomes a metaphor for my marriage.

12.  It is often overlooked and dumped on, too......

13.  and I can't stand looking at it.

Foyer Update

What an overwhelming task! Truthfully, I gave up on sorting through the mail and paperwork- it was mostly David's anyway, so I delegated.  In two grocery bags. :)

So here we go...... I forgot to take the before picture before  I started pulling junk out, so it looks worse than it really was.

BEFORE

See, everything gets dumped as we walk in!  I was not kidding.

AFTER 

I painted the banister black. I don't think David

was impressed (that is why I waited until he left)

The five cube tower.  Kinda proud of myself on this one.  I wanted one with five cubbies, they only had ones with 4. Then I remembered that I had a 2 and a 3 already and was not using them- so I used Liquid Nails and some screws to make my own!

And here is the side view- I added some hooks for David's

coach clipboard and my purse.

Foyer (otherwise known as the dumping ground)

I hate our foyer.  This is where everyone enters the house.  And then drops everything.  It is typically a heap of shoes, sports equipment, books, mail, dog fur and anything David has used for work in the past 5 days.  If there is a flat surface, someone will pile stuff up. I have purchased "lockers"for the kids, which they use to shove anything they don't want to take the time to put away.  David has taken to piling stuff on top. the key hooks have turned into some kind of mail holder and it looks odd....

So i plan to clean, organize and revamp the foyer.  I do realize it will last about 6 minutes and a 15 minute living room and foyer tidy will have to be on my daily agenda, but so be it..... This is the first thing I see when I get home and it actually deflates me the minute I open the door.   In fact, there have been days I cannot open the door because there is a flip flop or other shoe wedged under the door path.... 

CHECKLIST

• Clear out trash
• Clean out drawers
• Clean out lockers and tops of lockers
• Take out bulletin board that never gets used
• Replace short tower with tall tower
• Stain lockers and tower darker color
• Add baskets to tops of locker
• "Decorate" table top in attractive manor*
• Use new tower to hold keys, sunglasses, receipts, camera, ipod,  etc.
• Paint pantry door with chalkboard paint
• New rug
• Paint stair area
• Hang new pictures

I know it sounds like a lot, but this area is a mess. It needs to function to keep us in order and also look nice.  It won't all happen in one day, but i do have all summer to keep rotating rooms until I am done.