So I've Been Told It's Been A Year Since I Blogged . . .

I figured the two people that cared, wouldn't.

However, since several people have mentioned it in the last month, I thought it would be a fun experiment to post and see if anyone notices.

Yeah, no one will.

Maybe my mom.

Nah, she quit reading it before I quit last year. Just kidding, Mom. Sort of.

Year in review:

Little One definitely found her new friend. They sit in the other room watching reruns of Psych and Lost as I type. They've been in that room for 3 days straight now. I'm too lazy and too tired to get them out of there. With the rest of the family in Uruguay, I'm really into letting them do what they want. It is summer time: when kids do what they want and a dip in the pool counts as a bath.

Middle One has a girlfriend and is turning out to be one heck of a goalie. Soccer got a little dramatic this past year, but hey. Kids' sports. Wouldn't be fun without a coach screwing over a kid, right?

Tor has done incredible her first two years of college. Yes, I have a Junior in college. Shut up. I don't want to talk about it.

Hubby is on a trip with 19 people to Uruguay. Ah, the glamourous life of a youth minister. Sitting in airports for 3 days waiting out volcanoes. And he coulda been a pro football player! Bah. Who needs money when there's all this glitz?

And I'm a lactation consultant for WIC. Mark that as job, um, last count, 36 for me! One day I'll know what I want to be when I grow up. I think it will involve writing, but again, why go for the fame and fortune of publication when I can counsel women about their boobs? Oh, the glory!

Need I say more? Really?

A Little Too Late To Help

On a blog focused on teen girls, a mom recently wrote an open letter to the parents of Miley Cyrus. The only way you don't know about Miley/Hannah Montana is if you are not the parent of a girl under the age of 13 or if you live under a rock completely cut off from any sort of civilization, which means you're not reading anything on the web - including this blogpost.

We've all heard of Miley. And she recently made a sexed up, poorly executed, somewhat B video that has moms up in arms. Sweet little Hannah portrayed as a sex kitten - er, caged up as some sort of rare creature - is quite disconcerting. Great moment for moms trying to teach their little ones they don't have to be sexed up to get attention.

But I digress. What I really mean to say is that while I understand the frustration of the woman writing the open letter to Miley's parents - didn't we all want to pull them to the side and say, "Why in the heck do you want your daughter to do such crappy work?" - the real point is that it is too late to be giving advice to Billy Ray and Tish.

Miley will be 18 this year. At that point, a parent has done the parenting. You can't give your child your morals when they are 18. They should have been instilled already and by that time you're standing back, watching your child, hoping that what you've taught them has made a difference in who they are. You cannot force them to be what you want them to be. They are who they are.

Parenting teenagers happens when they are toddlers - actually, psychologists say their personalities are formed by age FIVE. Parenting teenagers starts the very first time your child smarts off to you. The very first time they make a bad choice. The very first time they want their way over your way. Parenting teenagers cannot wait until you have teenagers.

The hard work starts when they come out and by the time you've reached 18 if you're still trying to force them to mimic your morality . . . you're screwed. And this doesn't necessarily mean you've done a piss-poor job of parenting. Maybe you've done all you could and your child is an individual and for some reason - their personality and experiences - they've turned into someone very different than you hoped they would be.

Or maybe you've done a piss-poor job of parenting and it's just a little late to mold them into something different than you've already created. If you're first trying to instill morals into your child when they're developing tits and zits then YOU ARE TOO LATE. And odds are, by this point they're not seeing those same morals lived out in your own life so you're adding hypocrisy into the mix. If you haven't been living the very morals you're trying to teach then give up. It won't work. Why try anyway? Why are you trying to convince them to live morals you haven't been living their whole lives?

Maybe Billy Ray and Tish have done a good job of parenting and Miley has just grown up to be an attention-craving, money hungry, unprincipled little sex tramp. In that case, piling on their heartache with an open letter is just adding pain to an already miserable set of parents.

Or maybe this is exactly who they've groomed Miley to be. In that case, they really don't care whether we agree with the moral choices their child is making. Maybe they just used their child as another form of income and whatever she does that keeps her in the spotlight keeps their bottom-line in the black.

All I know is the 10 year old and the 18 year old that live in my house find Miley's new video pitiful, disgusting, laughable and pathetic.

So my parenting seems to be right on track.

Seriously??????

Perhaps this is why every single person in America should not vote . . .

God help us. Seriously.

If I Waited Til April 26th . . .

then it would be officially 3 months since I blogged. That seems like a nice round number but since I'm here I guess I'll finish.

Fast update on life:

I just got back from Grand Rapids, Michigan where I attended Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing. There were plenty of great fiction writers, deep thinkers, poets and essayists there. Great conversations swirled all around me about a great many things. I, of course, know this because I was eavesdropping, but that's not why I had a blast.

I hung out with some really AWESOME folks. Old friends and new ones. I laughed until my stomach hurt and listened to some great writers. Needless to say, my to-read list is extremely long. Truthfully, I won't be able to afford them.

I'll probably buy them anyway.

The kids both had tournaments so Hubby was on dad duty overdrive. Middle One has been moved to a team that has officially made it to the top 16 in Florida. Cuz, ya know, we wouldn't want soccer season to be over. Drag it out as long as possible.

Little One will finish up in a couple of weeks and it won't be soon enough. Mean girls abide all over the place down here. Can't wait to see the door hit them . . . ya know.

All in all, part of the reason for lack of blogability is that life is same ol' same ol' around here. Soccer, volleyball, church, school and well, weight gain.

Ah, I'll come up with something brave and brilliant tomorrow.

It's almost time for LOST.

But I'm back.

This Is Why I Read Imonk . . .

I'm just posting one of his old posts because I don't believe I could possibly say it any better. I love his blog. Open. Honest. He's just trying to look like Christ. He's got cancer and isn't writing his own stuff right now, he has a guest blogger. But every couple of days the guest blogger pulls up an old piece of Imonk's and this is why I keep going back:

I don’t like the fact that I can give a really good talk on prayer when I rarely pray.

I don’t like it that I can read Matthew 5:23-24 and, as far as I can recall, never take a single step toward obeying it.

I don’t like that I can sin and then condemn someone else’s sin in almost the same breath.

I don’t like it that I’m convinced people need to understand me, but I take so little time to understand others.

I regret that I’ve spent so much of my life seeking to make myself happy in ways that never led to real happiness at all.

I don’t like it that I’ve accumulated so much stuff I don’t need, and I’m so reluctant to give it away.

It causes me real sorrow that I’ve said “I love you” far to little in my life, especially to the people I love the most.

I don’t like the fact that some of my students think I’m a hero, when I’ve done nothing more than be an unprofitable servant.

I hate the difference between what I know and what I do.

I hate the fact that I can use words like “radical” describing what others should do in following Jesus when I’m the first one to want to play it safe.

I don’t like that part of me that thinks everyone should listen to what I say.

I wish I could see myself as God sees me, both in my sinfulness and in the Gospel of Jesus.

I regret using so little of my life’s time, energy and resources for worship and communion with God.

I despise that part of me that always finds fault, and uses that knowledge to put myself above others.

I am embarrassed by the words I use that come so easily from the tongue but have little root in the heart.

I regret taking so few risks in the cause of living a God-filled life.

I despise the shallowness of my repentance for sin that has caused hurt and pain for others.

I don’t like that part of me that can make up an excuse, even lie, almost endlessly in the cause of avoiding the truth and its consequences.

I don’t like that I can talk of heaven in a sermon or at a funeral, but very little of me wants to go there.

I regret that I have loved my arrogant self far than I’ve loved my self humbled in Christ.

I regret that so much good advice, good teaching and good example was wasted on me.

But I am glad for the endless mercies of the Lord, and the amazing fact that those mercies extend to me, today and every day.

I am glad that Christ my substitute took this sorry life, pathetic obedience and lethargic worship and exchanged it for his perfect righteousness.

I am glad that the Holy Spirit is remaking and raising dead men- even at age 52.

I am glad that one day I will look at all these failures and regrets and they will have been transformed into the very glory of Jesus Christ himself.

I am glad that God has cast the very things I most dislike about myself into the depths of the sea and has removed them as far as the east is from the west.

I am glad that when I return in shame and embarrassment, my Father meets me running, covers me with his gladness and throws me a party in the presence of the naysayers and pharisees.

I am glad that Jesus takes these things I loathe about myself and says “It is finished. Come you good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Today you will be with me in paradise.”

I am glad Jesus says “Before I have called you servant, but now I will call you friend.”

I am glad Jesus says “Who condemns you? There is now no condemnation because you are in me and I am in you. If I am for you, who can be against you? Go, and sin no more.”

I know, I know . . .

I'm never updating this thing anymore.

I'm lonely and boring and have nothing to say.

But a little pressure from a couple of people will lead to this update:

Middle One is soccer, soccer, soccer . . . as usual. Only now I have a travel team AND high school soccer running simultaneously. So much fun that way.

Little One is missing friends. Cried herself to sleep this evening. Please help me pray up a GOOD friend. Not a BEST friend, as I've been told, because her best friends are in Gainesville and no one can ever be best friends like they are.

Tor is at school again. We miss her like crazy. Of course you would know that yourself if she EVER came on and blogged herself. Of course, at this particular moment I'm not really one to talk.

I really want to be good about posting. I have a feeling one day I'm going to look back on my life and wish I'd recorded a few more moments here. I already wished I'd been blogging when the kids were little so I could've saved moments from back then.

Of course there wasn't really ubiquitous blogging back in the Stone Ages.

As for me, I've submitted another story so keep your fingers crossed. Also, I'm still swimming and getting my butt kicked by old people.

And not losing weight while I'm doing it.

Yeah, me.

Book Review: Stephanie Plum novels 1-14 by Janet Evanovich

Figured I may as well throw them all in one post.

These books ARE the reason I haven't blogged in a month. Well, not the only reason, but a large part of the reason.

Can't be the whole reason, cuz I haven't blogged in a month and it only took me 3 weeks to read all the books. However, I have had to do other things like feed my children, clean the house and play the piano. I tried to fit all that in with my reading. And I did some of it.

I really like these books although I have to say up front, the reason I can fit them all in one blog post is because they're all basically the same book.

Heroine must find bad guy, heroine gets into crazy high jinx with her bff, heroine wants Ranger, heroine wants Morelli, gets kidnapped, gets rescued, captures bad guy, still wants Ranger and Morelli.

But no one cares if the books are all the same cuz they're just so darn funny. There really is nothing funnier than the characters in these books and each book intros some new freaky figure to laugh at. So this is why I will keep reading them. Just to see what crazy little Stephanie drags up next.

Laugh out loud funny. Really, how many other books are you gonna get to read out loud to your husband a scene where a penis gets delivered in a box to the dinner table and the Grandmother can't wait to take a look?

And now I can't wait for them to make a movie. And I will dedicate the rest of this post to picking the characters:

Stephanie Plum must be Sandra Bullock. There is no debating this.

Lola is a toss up between Queen Latifa and that black lady that does the PineSol commercials.

Connie should be Marissa Tomei, although she might be a little young. But if you saw her in My Cousin Vinny, you know she's the one to pull it off.

Vincent Plum could be Danny Aiello. He's Italian and looks like he could pull off slimy.

Mary Lou should be the sweet girl from the movie Miss Congeniality, you know the one that says her idea of an ideal date is April 25.

Grandma Mazur is a toughie. Most people are gonna want to pick someone like the oldest lady from the Golden Girls but I tend to go with someone like, oh what's her name, the lady with the obnoxious mouth and her and her daughter do fashion critiques on the runway? Joan Rivers.

Her parents can be the dad from Everybody Loves Raymond and the mom from My Greek Wedding. Don't know their names.

Her sister Valerie could be Monica Bellucci. I feel like she could pull off the sweet girl goes crazy thing.

The Mooner will have to be Napolean Dynamite. Whatever his name is. Without a doubt.

Sally Sweet should be the guy that played Shaggy in live action Scooby Doo. Perfect.

Of course I'm leaving Morelli and Ranger til last cuz I just don't know. I'm going to have to do a google search for hottest guys in the universe to decide. I guess I'm just gonna have to wait and see who they pick, but I keep thinking of that guy from the show in the early 2000's, Third Watch, his name is Bobby Cannavale, for Morelli (I'll feature his pic for this post so you can look at him and then agree with me). Google him. Pretty hot. I think he'd do. Or someone a WHOLE lot like him, anyway. And a lot of people say The Rock for Ranger, but I don't know. Maybe. He's the best suggestion I've seen so far.

Hope they really make a movie, as I'm going to the midnight showing of it if they do. Anyone else wanna go??