I’ve been on bedrest twice with two of my pregnancies.  With Engineer I had pre-eclampsia and was down for three weeks.  With Sugar I had "pre-term labor" (not sure how serious/legit it was since she was born at 40 weeks gestation) and was down for six weeks.  Bedrest is lonely, dull and difficult and I always longed for visitors who didn’t seem to come often enough.

I always try to understand purpose in my trials and what I gleaned from my bedrest experiences (aside from healthy babies) was compassion for others experiencing the same situation.  I vowed to never let anyone else suffer with loneliness and lack during a time of bedrest.

A friend of mine recently was hospitalized for pregnancy issues– she’s been in and out of the hospital on bedrest for a month and a half or two.  I have visited once.  Yes, you heard me once.  Every time I was ready to go for a visit, my kids would get sick or I would get sick.  I’ve been trying to get out to the hospital for three weeks now and we have just been pillaged with the plague. And yesterday she had her baby 13 weeks premature.

And I have learned yet another lesson.

Forgiveness.

Not that I am super quick to forgive myself mind you, because trust me I am kicking myself right now, even though the situation is mostly out of my hands.  But I realize now,or am willing to believe, that all those people who didn’t come and visit me weren’t necessarily avoiding me– they just had life happen to them too.  Life pretty much stops for a person on bedrest, but it continues to go on for everyone else, regardless of how good a friend or how close a relative to you they are.  So with this realization I forgive.  And I continue to be a champion for the bedridden with a new resolve.

Who do you know who could use a visit from you?  (That’s sort of rhetorical, no need to leave it in the comments.)

That’s what the wrongly convicted, now freed prisoners in Texas are saying.

Some of these men have been imprisoned for 25 years or more.  Can you imagine?  Prison is a horrible place, as it should be for societies criminals, but to be there unjustly?  To spend a third of your life there for something you didn’t do?  Now granted, these men are being released and compensated heavily, but like one man said, "no amount of money can replace the time we’ve lost."

And this brings me to another thought.  I waste time.  I lose time everyday doing things that are of little value and will not bring me long term success or joy.  Most of it on the internet to be fair.  Time is precious, it’s the one commodity we can never obtain more of.  What things am I missing?  What is being lost?  In 25 years no one is going to pay me for my lost time– and it wouldn’t satisfy me anyway.

So… what about you?  Where is your time being wasted?  And what are you going to do to fix it?

Do you ever make assumptions about people before you’ve met them?

Charming asked me the other day if we could have his friend (we’ll call him Bus Friend for our purposes) and his fiancee over for dinner.  I said fine, nonchalantly picked a date, rescheduled later due to flooding and we ended up holding the dinner last night.

In my mind, I was a little hesitant to play hostess for a couple of reasons, the first being that the only people that ever come to our house are under four feet tall and don’t really care if my house is covered in toys, or dirt or chocolate chips.   I was slightly worried that this kidless engaged couple would see my house and be kind of judgmental about the mess.  I was mostly nervous about meeting Bus Friend’s Fiancee though because not only does she not eat meat…

She is vegan.

Which is cool.  I totally respect people who have the strength to stick to their principles.  And I was told not to worry because Bus Friend’s fiancee was bringing her own dishes so we wouldn’ have to stress.  So no worries, right? But worry I did.  Was she going to watch me eat my meat and animal products and cringe?  Would she walk past the first two uniquely clean rooms in my house and feel the need to go home and wash? Would this?  Would that? What if?  Should I?  Shouldn’t I?

And so it went until Saturday when I cleaned as much of my house as I had time for.  I made a "vegan as possible" salad and served french dips.  (Meaty I know).  I was pretty sure it would be fine, but I didn’t know what to expect.

And so Bus Friend and his fiancee came to dinner.  We had a good time.  No, we had a great time.  I learned a little bit about Bus Friend’s Fiancee’s decision to be vegan and she was very cool about us not being vegan.  Bus Friend’s fiancee brought some really tasty vegan food, she helped in the kitchen and brought some really fun games to play (including my new favorite game ever).

And she saw my dirty house and didn’t cringe.  In fact, as I apologized to her about the state of my living space, she said something that was so totally awesome I almost cried– she said my house was "full of life."

Bus Friend’s fiancee, I now dub you "Cool Girl" and you are my new BFF.

Best night of the week ever.  I love making new friends.   

I sort of like being proven wrong sometimes. 

So, I have lately fallen in love with a few classic Sesame Street songs.  "I don’t want to live on the moon," by Jeff Moss and "Imagination" by Joe Raposo, along with "Frogs in the Glen" by Tony Geiss.  I was thinking today that I would love to tell these men thank you for these wonderful and beautiful songs.  And when I turned to my internet today, I discovered that two of these men, Jeff Moss and Joe Raposo, have passed on.

I was sad.

And I really hope that someone told them how lovely their music is before they left.  I guess no one could have thanked them for how deeply their songs would touch me, but they have.  And maybe in Heaven they have access to the internet– and maybe they will come across this and know what their works have meant to me.  But I hope they knew what an impact they have had on so many others.

*I sometimes wonder if my standard of cleanliness is only one degree cleaner than "light-a-match-and-walk-away."  I was at a friends house the other day and she told me I should keep my shoes on because her floors were "filthy".  Her floors were cleaner than mine after I clean them. 

*I’ve recently become addicted to this. Who knew even grown ups still like dressing up dolls?  Of course, this one is good too.

*Last week while Sugar was at a friend’s house I got so much done!  My house was so clean until she came home and thwarted my efforts.  This week when we went to pick her up, Engineer says, "No!  She’ll be all crazy when she gets home."  Indeed.

*Sorry I don’t have more.  I have been doing makeovers (on real people, thank you) all week to finish a goal.  I will be done today and it feels good!

Every night I go to bed without a plan.  Every morning I wake up and fiddlefart around, not knowing what to do thus wasting many minutes of many hours.

Of course there are things on my SCHEDULE.  There are things that MUST BE DONE, but I otherwise don’t have a plan for my day.  Most often I am just kind of winging it and I waste A LOT of time doing stuff that is of little importance.  I fritter away the morning, and then by afternoon, I am tired and want to relax.

And what gets accomplished?

Not much.

And it occurred to me the other day that being a Mom is my JOB.  If I worked for someone else, I would get up, shower, get dressed and go to work.  I would work 8 hours with maybe an hour and half max of "break time" and then I would go home to do whatever needed to be done at home.  (Sleep included).  With this in mind, I keep thinking I need to take this attitude about my home/mothering job.  I should probably have a plan, get up and get dressed.

The problem with this idea, I have determined, is that at a J-O-B someone else is telling you what to do.  You never have to come up with what needs to be done, except within the parameters of what you have already been asked to accomplish.  At home it’s just me.  With the exception of the occasional request for soynut butter and jelly sandwhiches, no one is giving me the slightest suggestion of what should be seen to that day.  There isn’t even anyone telling me that I need to get dressed.  (My children, fortunately do have someone telling them this.)

But I am a big girl, and I should be able to shower and dress myself by 9 (at least) without anyone telling me to do so.  I know how to use and alarm clock.  I even know how to make a plan.   

Well that’s it then.  I am vowing RIGHT NOW to turn it around.  To make a concious effort to get up with a plan and not waste time.  Right after I read a few blogs…

Says Charming.  But oh no, popcorn is not what he smells, though I would agree it does smell like burnt popcorn.

Sugar is NOTORIOUS for getting into stuff, making messes and being generally destructive.  This morning was no exception.  However in rare form, she came to confess the deed before I discovered it.  Probably because when she put the oatmeal, water and METAL spoon in the microwave, she got scared because of the "popping."

"Mom," she says.  "I put the oatmeal in the microwave and I pushed the wrong buttons and it was popping."   I of course had to record her saying this because it was really cute the way she said it.

I did not however take a picture of the "oatmeal" but the scene I came upon can be described as thus: crispy fried oatmeal in a bowl, with a metal spoon, and the microwave set at 84 minutes.  When I pushed in the crispiness with the spoon, black ooze.  And the smell?  Burnt popcorn with a hint of stainless silver. 

The children insisted on candy the other day.  Feeling generous, I gave them both a whopping two skittles each.  Sugar started tantruming and demanding more.   A more experienced Engineer, sat back and watched.

me: Okay, then give them back.
Sugar: waaaaahhhh! I want more skibbles!
me:I already gave you two, but if you’re unhappy I’ll have them back.
Sugar: waaaahhhhh! I want more skibbles!
me: Sugar, how would you feel if you gave me a present and I said, "waaaaahhhh!  I want more!"  Would you be sad?
Sugar (making pouty sad face): Uh-huh.  (pause)  I want more skibbles!  WAAAAAHHHH!
me: You are making me so sad.
Engineer: I didn’t make you sad!  I just ate my skittles!
Sugar: waaaaaahhhhh!!!!! 

How often do we do this as grown-ups?  How often do we receive bounteous blessing from our Heavenly Father, and rather than being thankful and content, we whine and ask for more?  Sugar didn’t need the skittles, nor did I need to give them to her.  I wanted to give her more, but more wouldn’t have necessarily been good for her.  And I definitely wasn’t going to give her more after she threw that fit.  And yet she was getting something special that she asked for, and didn’t usually get and she was unhappy with it.

I know I do this in my life. I have so many blessings, and few of them are actual "needs" and yet sometimes I still want more.  Sometimes I neglect to be thankful for what I have.  Sometimes I forget that Heavenly Father is in charge, and he wants to bless me, but he does it in the way that is best for me.  Sometimes I am a whiny three year old.

And that’s all I have to say about that. 

Did you know that a toddler can actually suck the color out of a washable marker?  In the mouth long enough, the tip of a red marker becomes white.  It’s true.  I witnessed it today.

I also learned today that in a relatively sterile looking environment, such as the Jiffy Lube, that small children can make incredible messes?  They WILL dump water all over the chairs and suck color out of markers.

In case you were wondering, small children will also color their entire legs with marker in the car.  One year olds intoxicated with washable ink will unravel all the toilet paper in the public restroom while you wash your hands.

I used to think it was difficult to take three children out in public.  I now know that it is not the number of small people that accompany you, but the specific individuals that you bring along that make the difference in your ease of excursion.  Two children in public can just as tricky as three if you take the right ones with you. 

I got the best phone message the other day.

My little sister who I had seen a week earlier called me and said, "Hi, I am calling because I missed you and want to hang out with you this weekend.  Call me back.  Bye."

THE BEST PHONE MESSAGE EVER.

It is soooo nice to be near family again.  It is so nice to be around people who not only want to hang out with me, but actually make the first move and call me first. Wow.  Amazing.

So today, Charming, Aunty Jessica, the kiddos and I piled in the car for a tour of a few of our local farms.  It was wonderful.  The weather was inconsistent, but it was sunny for our hayride where we enjoyed gorgeous views of the valley and only rained when we were in our car driving.

We ate corn and we saw pigs. 

A good day.

P.S.  Check out Sugar’s coat.  She put it on this morning and said, "Mmm.  Cozy."