Watch This. Un-freaking-believable!

If someone did any of those things to my kid and the ref just let it pass without a word, there would be one mad momma on the field.

Why on earth should she EVER be allowed to play the game of soccer again??? I am just simply stunned.

My Sweet Baby Gets A Gold Star

So, for those of you that have been paying attention, Little One is having a small girl problem at school.

Not to worry. She can handle it.

How do I know this?

Exhibit A. Friday.

During lunch, in their classroom, when she got finished eating she told the girls at her table she was going to go sit with a little boy that was sitting all by himself.

One of the girls said, "Why? Nobody likes him, he's irritating."

Little One said, "But he's all alone. He looks sad."

The brat other little girl said, "So. Why does that matter to you?"

Little One said, "Because I have a heart."

Then she picked up her stuff and went over and sat with the lonely little boy.

I don't know WHERE she gets all that spunk.

Silver Lining

So basically, Best Friend and I are the proverbial college students. AKA trying really hard to not use money. Last night we got a biiig craving for food. Any type of food. But what are we supposed to do when we want to save money?? Want to budget?? Oh, I know.

USE GIFT CARDS!

And what better for a late snack than Moes?? Because you know that's the majority of what we got for graduation. 

We weren't sure how much money we had on the cards so we were very smart- we didn't order drinks even. We were going to keep it on the cheap side. Perfect scenario right?

Weelllll not so much when the Moes gift card swipe thing was broken!! Which of course they did not let us know until we got to the end of the line ready to pay. The terrible words, "Oh we can't take those [gift cards]" came out of the cashier's mouth. Our faces dropped. How could they do that to us?! 

We were forced to pay.

However, the cashier did feel our pain. So what came from this catastrophe? Oh, that's right- free drinks and $5 off our next Moes purchase. Woo Hoo!!!!

Soo we still have gift cards, extra money, and a free drink. 

Not too bad :)

Mean Girls

Any advice on how to help Little One deal with snotty little nine year olds??

Evidently there are an abundance of them in her class.

I mean, not that long ago a girl sat on the playground and cried because these girls told her she was too ugly to play with them.

Wow.

Tor never really dealt with that. Not that extreme. For sure there were little moments here and there where I had to give the "girls are mean" speech. But geez. Where does that kind of mean come from?

Normally I'd try to downplay it even more, but the teacher has even addressed it to the class of girls telling them she wasn't going to have "mean girl cliques" in her class. I got the whole speech from Little One. So even the adult in the class has noticed it enough to talk about it.

And then, spit fire that she is, she wants to stand up for herself. But you know that nine year olds aren't always going to appropriately stand up for themselves without crossing the line to mean themselves so I don't want to let that be her response every time someone's mean. So I told her to only respond when someone's been mean three times in a row in one day. That's so arbitrary I know, but she wanted a guideline.

Just that someone will be mean three times in one day is R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S.

So I've given her some words and I've tried to cheer her up when she's down, but I'm running out of ammo here.

Whatcha got for me??????

When Swimming Isn't Swimming

So I went to the YMCA today. I've been swimming in my buddy's pool for the past, oh probably, two months. Thirty minutes. Twice a week.

No, it hasn't made me lose weight. That would mean my body was in a cooperative mood. It apparently hasn't improved what shape I'm in either.

Anywho, I figured since my friend messaged me that the water was a cool, freaking 70 degrees, I'd find something else to do for swimming.

Here comes the guest pass to the YMCA.

Hop in the water.

Start swimming.

Realize that a lap pool is WAY longer than a backyard pool.

Pant. Sweat.

Swim.

Look at the clock.

What?????? Only 10 minutes has gone by?

You've got to be freaking kidding me.

It was nearly impossible to finish out my 30 minutes - I did, but it totally sucked. PLUS the water was killing my eyes and BURNING my skin. What kind of chemicals are they putting in that water? It wasn't swimming, it was torture.

Then I had to get back on my bicycle in order to get home.

Needless to say, I was a little worn out when I pulled into the driveway.

I don't know why I continue to do these things to myself. I'm not losing weight. I'm not sporting a rock hard body. I bet my inches haven't even changed.

I don't even have a bff to talk to while I do it. *tear*

But I'll keep it up. Maybe it's making my heart really healthy.

Is it too much to ask that my butt get smaller too????

The More I Read And Study . . .

the more convinced I am that any time we add anything to the gospel, the result is just plain wrong.
I'm so surprised when I peruse the Christian blogosphere at how many people evidently do this. There is a long list of add ons. You are not a "true Christian" if you are not a: Republican, Democrat, Young Earth Creationist, homeschooler, Calvinist, King James only, Pre-tribulation . . . and the list could go on. All over the world of bloggers.
What I can't understand is why it is that so many people are so hard core about these things.
Now I happen to be a very opinionated person. I know, you're surprised, but I am. However, I just cannot make myself believe that my opinions are the only right ones and I'm always open to the idea that I could be . . . wrong.
It might take a LONG time to convince me, but I COULD be. I'm probably not, but I COULD be.
But I will NEVER accuse someone of not being a good Christian because their opinion varies from mine, for heaven's sake (of course, unless it's some required belief for HISTORIC Christianity - even then I won't say they're a BAD Christian, I'll say they don't understand the definition of Christianity).
For instance, why is it that young Earth creationists seem to be so adamant that the Earth was created in 6 literal days and the Earth is only several thousand years old and if you don't believe this you don't really believe the Bible is God's Word? Why does someone's opinion of this make any difference to their belief in the Resurrected and Glorious Jesus or their take on Scripture as God's literal Word? It's quite possible that there are other ways to read the Genesis texts. Why is it they think THEIR way is the only Godly way?
And what's with homeschoolers nowadays?? For Pete's sake, why do they CARE how MY child is educated? Why don't they just stick to worrying about their own kids - many of whom need big help with socialization, btw? Why must I hear their commentary on what poor Christian parenting is happening at my home because I choose to send my kid to the "evil" public schools? Give me a break. You don't know jack squat about my Christian parenting based on where my kids go to school, so back off already.
I'm just so tired of the ridiculous, self righteous attitudes given by the very people that should be the most humble, gracious and full of mercy. What's the deal with that? Have we really gotten so far away from the Truth that we cannot see that Jesus spent His time here blasting the religious people for those attitudes? As far as I can tell, Jesus saved His most vicious words for the high and mighty, hard-headed "godly" people of His time. We might just want to be careful not to be those people during OUR time.
I really do love a good debate. And I think it's fun to "argue" over stuff. That's fun business in my opinion. But until the Christians can get together and decide that there are some things that we're just not all going to agree on, then how in the world do we ever expect anyone else to care what we're saying. We can't even seem to treat each other like Jesus, how do we think that looks to people that don't know Him?
I don't know, the older I get the more I realize that my opinions are SO influenced by my time in history, where I grew up and how I was raised. There's so much to know about the early church, their traditions, their homes and their culture. Until I know all that, how can I possibly think that something I THINK about the Bible is the end all be all answer - 100% - when its so obvious to me that my point in time heavily influences my outlook. I can't even read the Bible with complete understanding without looking at their LANGUAGES. When there's so much left to KNOW, why think my small place in the world KNOWS it ALL?
This is, of course, why I love to study the Bible. So much truth and wisdom in the pages. The more I study, the more I need to study. The more I see my own need to change. To transform into His image. The more I read about Him the more I love HIM. The more I love Him, the more I realize I will never know it all.
And I'm okay with that.

SO I Guess My Family's Wearing A Big Fat Sign . . .

that says "Steal From Us" since Tor's marvelous first day at college experience and now, my bike has been stolen.

Pretty much had to be someone desperate for a ride because I'm telling you there wasn't nutin' fancy about my wheels. Pretty much a clunker as far as bikes go.

What I don't like, besides the fact that they STOLE from me, is that they came up onto our front porch when we were HOME.

That just seems pretty gutsy to me. Makes me nervous that someone that ballsy bold was up on my porch.

Did they look in the windows? Did they decide they liked my TV?

How'd they know I had a bike way up on my porch?

These are the things I wonder. And it doesn't really help that I have an overactive imagination. I can see the whole thing now. They've been staking out our house, planning to start with the bike and move up from there. Of course, in the story in my head the protagonist pulls out a shot gun and dares them to move.

Most likely, I suppose, it was kids that decided they wanted a bike. However, I did see a guy on a bike that looked suspiciously familiar on my way to the soccer field on Saturday. I was going too fast to get a good look. Little One kept yelling, That was it! Pull over so Dad can beat him up and get your bike back!

Meanwhile, I walked Little One to school this morning and then came home and strapped on the ol' roller blades for exercise.

Hoo-boy. THAT was interesting. Let's just say grace would not be the first thing that came to mind when you saw me.

I tried to stick to back streets in hope that everyone would be at work or gone for the day but alas, I actually saw people.

One guy just looked at me and shook his head and said, Hmmm. I've never tried that before.

I said, Yeah, well I don't really recommend it.

Considering I was rollerblading on asphalt clearly meant for cars and not skates. There were rocks, stones and shells in it sticking up for the sole purpose of getting stuck in my wheels and making me flail my arms around like a windmill caught in a windstorm.

Not my prettiest moment.

Of course, it's not my ugliest moment either so there's always that small consolation.

Meanwhile, rollerblading wastes a TON of calories according to myfitnesspal.com, which is my new favorite friend. So at LEAST I worked off enough to make it worth looking like a complete idiot.

But Mr. Thief shouldn't let that fact make himself feel too comfortable. If I come across him, I still imagine I'll want to try a little kickboxing.

For calorie burning purposes, of course.