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Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Saturday smiles

Saturday Smiles: World Peace edition

April 28, 2012

I know almost nothing about current events and/or sports except the snippets I catch from my husband’s ESPN viewing habit. So I have NO clue why some guy, whose name is World Peace, is in trouble for some kind of physical altercation on the basketball court. But the irony is so funny, as are the many tweets and Facebook statuses I’ve seen about it.

That’s something to smile about. Unintentional humor gets me every time.

We had our own “world peace” funny in the house this week. While playing this game, Isabelle decided the faces needed friends not matches. So she set down United States boy and picked up the Afghanistan girl and said, “There. They can be friends.” I have no idea how this translates to foreign policy, but maybe we need to get the U.N. to play this game and give everyone a friend. Later she matched India with Iran and said they could be friends. There was a lot of boy-girl matching going on, so if the foreign policy gig doesn’t work out for her, she can always run a dating service.

She is the source of many smiles this week.

Like when she pretends to be a cat.

And finishes her first-ever soccer clinic, complete with end-of-session medal.

One afternoon, I was lying on the couch because I could not keep my eyes open any longer. (Tell me you’ve been there!) She comes right up to my face … or should I say, she backs up to my face, pauses then walks away. I asked her why she did that. “I tooted on you. It was a BIG toot.” My husband, who was supposed to be working on a paper, busted out laughing. Trust me when I say, she is his child. This is learned behavior from a Dad who often shows his affection in dad-like ways, like tooting in their general direction. What was funny to me was how funny he thought it was.

I’d never considered that teaching your kids about Jesus could have unexpected side effects. Isabelle was singing to her brother out of the hymnal (she can’t read it yet) and her song went something like this: “He makes us happy when we sing. He makes us happy. He makes our ants die, die, die forever. They die forever.” Our kitchen is currently under attack by ants and I’ve launched a counter-attack in ant traps. Isabelle has been fascinated by the illustrations on the back of the packaging that show ants dying. Stay with me; I’ll get back to Jesus. Later, she and Corban were playing with a Little People ambulance and an Ariel doll (Barbie sized). Ariel was sick, or as Isabelle said, “She died forever.” Izzy carried her to the play kitchen oven and put her in because it was “a dark lonely place.” I assume this is her interpretation of Good Friday and not something altogether sick and twisted. Let’s go with Good Friday.

I’m amassing a collection of photos for which my son will hate me when he’s a teenager. Here’s the newest addition.

Here’s a more respectable one for him. He was jealous of the Izzy-as-cat picture at the time.

He looks innocent, but he gave us a “first” this week. We’d been to storytime at the library, where he and his sister had made ladybugs, and somewhere along the way, his ladybug lost an eye. By the time we sat down to lunch, it had lost both eyes. Corban’s had a bit of the sniffles lately, so we’ve been blowing his nose a lot. Just before lunch, Phil had Corban on the couch blowing his nose when I heard Phil exclaim, “Corban Ranard!” Wondering what warranted such a reaction, I rushed to the living room to find my husband holding one of the googly eyes from the ladybug. It had come out of Corban’s nose on one of the blows. I don’t remember Isabelle ever sticking anything up her nose. I think we’re in for a treat with this one.

Two workouts in this week plus a chance to get out of the house on a nice-ish sunny day in the middle of the week. The rest of the week was surrounded by cold, gloomy, rain-type days.

My husband’s senior banquet … a date night equivalent. We dressed up. I didn’t have to cook. Someone else watched the kids. The celebrations begin.

Three papers stand between my husband and graduation. Last week it was seven papers/assignments. One step at a time.

Happy Saturday!

Filed Under: Saturday smiles Tagged With: date night, death, Easter, embarrassing photos of your kids, Good Friday, soccer clinic

Saturday smiles: back to our normal edition

April 21, 2012

Major theme of the week: We’re healthy! And by “we” I mostly mean “me.” I’m learning that the old adage, “If momma ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy” rings true and you can substitute other words for “happy” like “healthy,” “calm” and “peaceful.”

So, Momma’s healthy again, which is one reason to smile, and I can eat food again, which is another reason to smile because I like food to have more consistency than Jello and more flavor than crackers.

The hubby is in the midst of his final papers and projects for seminary, and he was home for supper on Thursday, so I said I’d make whatever he wanted for dinner. We had pork burgers, seasoned fries and a salad. I’ve never made a pork burger in my life, but it was good enough that Phil said we could make them again sometime. Hitting the spot for dinner is a big deal for me. I still feel like a novice in the kitchen sometimes.

Speaking of my husband, I love watching him react to the ridiculous awesome antics on Top Gear. He’s like a little kid, and I mean that in a good way.

A friend brought this pretty lilac bundle to our house for a playdate on Monday. Their springy fragrance permeated the house all week and reminded me of the lilac bushes that lined the property between the house where I grew up and the neighbor’s. My dream house would have at least one lilac bush in the yard.

And speaking of purple, a friend and I got pedicures this week. It’s one of our coping mechanisms while our husbands read, write papers and try to figure out life after seminary. A survey of the kids for what color I should get on my toes yielded these answers: “Red!” (from Izzy) and “Blue!” (from Corban). I wasn’t initially crazy about either color, so I went for purple, which I think is a combination of the two. At least, that’s what I told them. Maybe it’s vanity, but I always like looking at my feet after a pedicure.

Corban is taking good care of his monkey named Baby. These days, he wraps Baby’s arms around his waist and gallops through the house, or down the road, yelling “Piggyback, piggyback.” One day he did this all the way to the library and back, which is a 20- to 30-minute walk each way.

After cleaning the bookshelf and weeding the holiday related books, the kids have rediscovered the recordable stories their Nana and Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Zach have sent to them. One of my favorite things they do when they “read” these books is they talk back to the voices. “Can you hear me Nana?” “Are you there, Nana?” and “I LOVE YOU!” (in response to a “We love you!” in the story from their aunt and uncle). How I wish the family could hear them from here.

And Corban is offering to pray more often at mealtime. Mostly, he says, “Dear Jesus, goodbye.”

We’ve had some good outdoors time this week, too. The boy in his truck always cracks me up.

One of the biggest developments is training wheels for the little girl.

On subsequent rides she was wearing a helmet. Please don’t report us for child abuse.

I’m off to writers group this morning, which makes me smile before I even get there because I love being with other writers and learning more about the craft and encouraging each other in our ventures.

Happy Saturday!

Filed Under: Children & motherhood, Saturday smiles Tagged With: graduation, health, lilacs, pedicure, playing outside, seminary, sickness, Top Gear, training wheels, writers group

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Hi. I’m Lisa, and I’m glad you’re here. If we were meeting in real life, I’d offer you something to eat or drink while we sat on the porch letting the conversation wander as it does. That’s a little bit what this space is like. We talk about books and family and travel and food and running, whatever I might encounter in world. I’m looking for the beauty in the midst of it all, even the tough stuff. (You’ll find a lot of that here, too.) Thanks for stopping by. Stay as long as you like.

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