Worship, Uganda Style

The kids and I were so blessed today when a children's choir performed at their school.

Not just any children's choir. A UGANDAN children's choir.

(If you aren't aware of my crazy love for Ugandan kids, read this.)

They sang, they danced, they stole my heart.











See this little boy in the center?


I want to keep him.

And have I ever told you that I'm going to be a drummer in Heaven? I am. And I'm going to play drums with these kids.


The moment that made me get all weepy, though, was this one when the choir was singing Chris Tomlin's "How Great is Our God." The photo is blurry because I was crying and couldn't focus the lens properly, but this is TRUE worship.


Many of these kids are orphans. Some lived in such poverty that their moms had to send them away. But all of these kids know that God is their Father. They have hope in Christ. And the joy, the pure joy, is so evident on their faces.

Produce Co-op, Week 3

Oh my word, doesn't that all look good? Here's what we got in this week's produce batch:

Blueberries: 6 ounces = $1.99
Mango: 1 at 79 cents = $0.79
Gala Apples: 4 pounds at $1.59/lb. = $6.36
Pears: 4.38 pounds at 99 cents/lb. = $4.33
Red Grapes: 2.44 pounds at $1.97/lb. = $4.80
Strawberries: 1 pound = $2.99
Romaine Lettuce: 2 heads at $1.79/lb. = $3.58
Zucchini: 2 pounds at $1.59/lb. = $3.18
Cherry Tomatoes: 15 ounces = $2.99
Mini Carrots: ten 2-oz. bags = $4.47
Kiwi: 3 at 50 cents each = $1.50
Bananas: 3.5 pounds at 38 cents/lb. = $1.33

This week's total: $38.31 ($13.31 ahead and it got delivered!)
Week 2: $5.45 ahead
Week 1: $10.68 ahead

So far, I'm ahead $29.43! I've only had to throw away one icky potato, but otherwise we've eaten EVERYTHING. I feel healthier already.

Produce Co-op, Week 2

We got a very different batch of produce this week. Here's how it compared to the grocery store.

Avocados @ 50 cents each = $2.50
Blackberries @ $1.99/half pint = $1.99
Corn @ 50 cents each = $2.00
Grape Tomatoes @ $2.99/pint = $2.99
Green Beans @ $1.79/pound = $4.92
Green Grapes @ $1/pound = $2.25
Honeycrisp Apples @ $2.99/pound = $5.59
Romaine Hearts @ $2.99/bag = $2.99
Strawberries @ $2.99/pound = $2.99
Tomatoes @ $1.49/pound = $2.23

The same produce at HEB Plus would have cost $30.45. Technically Danny got the tomatoes for free because they were less than stellar looking, but we ate them and they tasted fine to me. I'm not sure I'll be able to use nearly three pounds of green beans, but they do look crisp and fresh.

Week 1: ahead $10.68
Week 2: ahead $5.45

So far I'm ahead $16.13 and we haven't had to throw away any spoiled produce. Even better, the kids and I are eating a wider variety of fruits and vegetables!

Crazy Wednesday

It's been a crazy busy day.

Up at 6:30.
Dealt with crying son who didn't want to go to school because he's all about mommy right now.
Made blueberry pancakes with the last of the blueberries from the produce co-op (more on that later).
Sent kids out the door.
Hit the gym.
Hit Target. Returned items. Bought items.
Drank a chai latte.
Spent an hour in HEB Plus trying to find groceries (why can't they lay out that store more logically?).
Came home, unloaded groceries.
Ate.
Printed out receipts for everything that sold on eBay today.
Went to Walmart, Michaels, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Sears.
Found the perfect vacuum at Sears but they were out of stock.
Picked up kids.
Fed kids.
Checked homework.
Packed up eBay merchandise.
Found perfect vacuum (it's RED!) on Amazon for less money with free shipping.
Just realized that LOST IS ON IN THREE HOURS!
Must fix dinner.
Must bathe kids.
Must get kids in bed.
Must lie on couch with Tivo remote in hand and watch my favorite show.
Must ignore husband who will mock me for being excited about a TV show and a red vacuum.
Must sleep.
Tomorrow: Must take shower.

You Are an Obsession, You're My Obsession

Those aren't just great 80's lyrics by Animotion. I truly have become obsessed with eBay.

Thankfully I'm selling, not shopping. The Hubs wouldn't be so pleased if I were obsessed with shopping right now, considering we just spent $4,000 on new tile and wood flooring.

No, I'm an eBay seller. A self-taught occasional eBay seller, to be clear. Several years ago I spent an afternoon setting up accounts and navigating the website. I attempted a sale, was successful, and have been hosting bi-annual sales ever since.

But here's the thing: When you have a bunch of stuff up for auction, you become addicted to the computer. Every time I walk by the computer I check to see how much the bids have been raised.

Oh look! The Creative Memories albums are up to $10.49!

It's the last thing I check at night and the first thing I check in the morning. There's just something magical about seeing those bids increase.

My friends sometimes laugh at me when I put things up for auction. Once I listed a lot of four overalls that I wore when I was pregnant.

"Overalls?" one of the Amys scoffed. "Nobody's going to want those!"

Never underestimate the power of eBay. Someone in Missouri paid $28 for those used pregnancy overalls.

Amy said the same thing a few of my scrapbook items I listed this week. Yup, those items have bids. One woman's scrapbook trash is another woman's scrapbook treasure, or something like that.

I've been typing for five minutes -- I think I'll go see how my auctions are doing! It is an obsession, after all.

Produce Co-op, Week 1

My good friend Amy has organized a produce co-op for 12 families. Amy has been part of a neighborhood produce co-op for many months and has been really pleased. Her only complaint was that the produce came every other week, so she organized a group of school moms who would share a weekly batch of produce. She has a friend who is a tomato dealer and has access to the San Antonio Produce Terminal.

Today was the first round, so I thought I'd do a little price-comparison to see how well we did. Before I get into the numbers, I thought I'd clarify my goals for joining the co-op. It wasn't to save money on produce, because I have no clue how much we spend on produce each week.

My main goal was to eat more fresh produce. If I don't buy it, I won't eat it. Sadly, I don't always buy it. And when I do buy it, my kids eat the large majority of the fruits while many of the vegetables sit pathetically in the crisper.

My secondary goal was to be challenged to be more creative in the kitchen. I'm hoping that the weekly influx of produce will force me not only to cook more often but also to cook a wider variety of entrees and side dishes.

My third goal was to get fresher produce. I swore off Wal-Mart produce long ago because it was downright nasty. But sometimes H-E-B produce is lacking in quality, too. With the co-op, the distributor hand-selects the best produce from what's available at the terminal. I'm fairly confident that I won't get any icky fruits or lackluster veggies.

Enough talk -- here's what I came home with today.


I weighed all the produce and then went to H-E-B and noted what today's prices were for the same or comparable items.

Red Seedless Grapes: 2.6 pounds at $2.49/lb. = $6.47
Gala Apples: 3 pounds at $1.28/lb. = $3.84
Blueberries: 1/2 pint = $1.99
Strawberries: 1 large container = $1.99
(and the berries at the store were rotten)
Small Navel Oranges: 3.4 pounds at 99 cents/lb. = $3.37
Bananas: 3.5 pounds at 44 cents/lb. = $1.54
Baking Potatoes: 3.11 pounds at 99 cents/lb. = $3.08
Broccoli Crowns: 1.5 pounds at $1.79/lb. = $2.68
Romaine Lettuce: 2 heads at $1.79 each = $3.58
Spinach: 10-ounce bag = $4.49
(actually, this was the price for a 9-ounce bag)
Baby Carrots: 11 bags totaling 1.4 pounds at $1.89/lb. = $2.65
(this isn't a direct comparison because the grocery store didn't have the individually portioned carrots tonight)

Total at H-E-B: $35.68
Total with co-op: $25 ($20 for the food and $5 to Danny who bought, sorted, and delivered the produce)

So far I'm $10.68 ahead AND I got some seriously fresh produce.

My Cat Hates Me

This is Zelda. Zelda is our gorgeous calico kitty who was given to us about 5 years ago by Kevin's brother Stephen.

Stephen wasn't her first owner, either. He found Zelda is his apartment carport and, being an unimaginative guy, named her Carport. But when Stephen later gave her to us, I quickly decided that this cat was far too dignified to be called Carport. So I named her Zelda after Zelda Fitzgerald, the crazy wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald who spent most of her life in an asylum.

It just seemed appropriate given the cat's new living situation.

Zelda has always been a loving, friendly, purry cat. She sleeps on my pillow, she always snuggles with me, and she has always shown preference to me over anyone else in the house.

But not today. Today Zelda is M-A-D mad. Yesterday morning I dropped off Zelda at the vet's for her annual exam and for a teeth cleaning. I figured the teeth cleaning would be routine. A little happy gas, a little tartar removal.

$350 later Zelda had her shots updated, her teeth cleaned, a tooth extracted, and a baggie full of pain medicine to get her though the weekend.

(Can I just point out that when I see the dentist, it only costs 60 bucks?)

When I picked her up in the afternoon, Zelda looked at me with woeful eyes that said, "I can't believe you did this to me." I tried petting her, but she sauntered off and hid.

Last night Zelda chose not to sleep on my pillow.

This morning Zelda is still looking at me with disgust and disappointment.

I keep administering the pain meds hoping that she'll be grateful for the relief, but I think having a plastic syringe shoved in her mouth is just making her dislike me all the more.

Right now she's lying in her favorite chair with her paws covering her face, looking a bit hungover. Here's hoping her pain subsides and Zelda forgives me for my dental transgressions.

My Husband, the Pack Rat

My husband's pack-ratty ways have been a source of contention in our marriage since Day One. I'm a big believer in the "own what you need and use what you own" way of life. I'm a minimalist. I ahbor clutter.

My husband, however, is a big believer in the "everything is useful" mentality. He saves empty toilet paper rolls and takes them to church so the kids can make cardboard binoculars. He saves slivers of soap and smashes them onto a bigger bar of soap. He will eat food well past it's expiration date because the man has an iron stomach.

My husband could easily have been a Depression Baby. Too bad he was born in 1971.

His craziest quirk is his need to save every cardboard box and piece of packing material that comes into this house. Anytime the UPS man drops off a package at our front door, Kevin swoops in and rescues that cardboard box. Whenever I buy a pair of shoes, and glory knows that's pretty frequently, Kevin keeps the shoebox. At Christmastime he carefully stacks and stores all the product boxes.

Where do all these boxes go? We have a large attic above the garage, and it resembles a cardboard museum. Kevin thinks it's perfectly normal to house 200 cardboard boxes because I occasionally sell things on eBay and use an occasional box.

What Kevin forgets is that I always ship via Priority Mail and, hello, those boxes are free.

About five years ago I got fed up. I got tired of climbing the attic ladder and being unable to move more than two feet without having a tower of boxes fall on me. Luckily a friend was moving so I called her over and filled her SUV with cardboard boxes.

Then two years ago I got fed up again. I spent a couple hours throwing things down the attic ladder into the garage below. I hauled it all out to the curb and prayed that the trash men would be kind to me the next day.

The decluttering bug attacked again last week, so I ventured into the attic and tried again. Apparently I missed a whole section of boxes in my previous purges because look what I found?


Mm hmm, that would be a box for a baby toy that we were given in 1999 when my eldest was born. We haven't even had this toy in our possession for more than three years, but the box? Oh the box was in our attic "in case we needed to return it," as Kevin likes to rationalize.

Wanna see all the other crap I threw down the ladder this time? Here, take a look-see:


In no particular order, here are some highlights of what I unearthed this time:

1. A ten-foot hollow metal pole. In case Kevin takes up jousting, I suppose.

2. Several MDF boards and two-by-fours of various lengths from when our house was built. In case Kevin takes up carpentry someday. (I didn't throw these out, by the way. Last night the kids and I roasted marshmallows over a two-by-four fire in our fireplace. See? I'm not wasteful.)

3. Two dozen asphalt shingles from when they built our house. In case Kevin takes up roofing, too. The funniest thing about this is that our roof was partially replaced last year but Kevin had no idea these rotting, warped shingles were in the attic. Thank goodness, because he probably would have tried to do the repair himself and I would have a very leaky roof above my closet.

4. The box from our pack-n-play that we no longer own. Several shoe boxes. Dozens of other boxes. Boxes boxes boxes!

5. Enough packing paper and styrofoam peanuts to fill SIX Hefty bags. SIX. I couldn't bring myself to throw out perfectly good packing paper, though. But if we don't use it in the next decade I'll toss them, OK?

6. Some car mats for a vehicle we don't own. I'm hoping these are Honda Odyssey car mats because mine look NASTY. If they fit my car, then that will be a lucky pack-rat find for me.

I give my husband a hard time for his pack-rattiness, but I can also laugh about it. I laugh because I discovered all his papers from high school English. And if he gets mad at me for throwing stuff out, I'll post what I read in these papers...

Not this time, Johnny!

The Boy was feeling rather goofy tonight. At one point he was being chased by Dad and ran away giggling while yelling, "Not this time, Johnny!"

The quote feels familiar, but I can't figure out where my five-year-old heard it. Any ideas?

The Obligatory New Year's Resolution Post

I'm a day late and a resolution short.

Technically I should have made one (or a dozen) New Year's resolutions yesterday, it being the first day of 2009 and all.

However, I spent the first few hours of New Year's Day completely frustrated by New Year's Resolution #1, which is to take a photograph every day this year. This idea was inspired by Creating Keepsakes' Project 365, which is a super-cool scrapbook kit.

Don't bother clicking on that link -- the kit is sold out. The kit was sold out about 2.4 seconds after it was released on the CK website, or so I've read by the dozens of angry scrapbookers who, like me, set their alarms to order the kit at 9 a.m. MST on January 1. The CK website was inundated with crazy people, like me, who really really wanted this kit.

I spent an hour getting booted off the system, getting error messages, and getting utterly steamed about the whole ordering process. I finally managed to order my kit (I think), but it was listed as a pre-order because the stock had already run out.

So my first photo for my Project 365 is of all three of my computers showing error messages while I sit pulling my hair out.

And I spent the rest of the day undecking my halls which is the most depressing process ever. I know it can't be Christmas all year long, but my house just looks better dripping in garlands.

Today, however, was a new day. Today I was going to live out New Year's Resolution #2, which is to do more for others. (OK, that's a little too vague to be an accountable resolution, but it works for me.) So today I did laundry for my kids, drove my daughter to a playdate, attempted to give blood for the first time in 10 years (only to be rejected because my iron count was low), and generally acted as a mom which is the most selfless job in the world.

And you know what? By dinnertime I was DONE. I was 12 hours into my doing-for-others day and I was a nasty shrew.

So tomorrow I'm enacting New Year's Resolution #3, which is to be absolutely selfish for at least 30 minutes a day. As in lock-myself-in-my-study-and-read-a-book selfish. As in send-the-kids-outside-so-I-can-have-some-quiet selfish. Because apparently I need my alone time.

I got over the grumpies, though, and now I'm back to doing more for others mode. I just spent 30 minutes on the Compassion website looking at those gorgeous faces from Uganda and Haiti. I don't know why those countries have a special place in my heart, but they do. We currently sponsor two children from Uganda and I'm praying about whether we can add a third, perhaps from Haiti.

Of course, I just bawled my way through an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition featuring the Frisch family who has half a dozen adopted Haitian children. Oh, part of me so wishes we could max out the house with Ugandan or Haitian children, but the larger part of me is absolutely terrified that all that chaos would tip the insanity scales toward the Prozac side.

Instead, we sponsor. And I'm praying that such a small sacrifice is enough. I'm praying that God will bless those poverty-stricken countries, that the children will be educated, that the families will not want, and that the people will have hope for a better future. Mostly I pray that somehow my small monthly gift and occasional letter will show the love of Christ to these children, because one day I want to hold them in glory if not on earth.