Where in the World Is Beth San Diego?

I always loved Carmen San Diego. She hid out in exotic places around the world and us gumshoes had to go sleuthing until we could find her....and we found a world of exciting geography at the same time! (Yeah, groan all you want, but really is the reason I know were countries like French Guiana are.) I love PBS television and I love Rockapella and there's nothing you can do to change my mind! Nothing, I say!

To bring yet another outdated reference into this post, I have decided that this post will be like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Sometimes you don't have time to read my personal ramblings and something short will have to do. Choice one is for you, my friends. Sometimes you are procrastinating writing a thank you letter to dear Great Aunt Helga who sent lovely knitted capes to your children in various pastel hues...and you will hang on every word just so that you can stay on the computer a little...bit...longer. Heck, you'll probably read BOTH endings.

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Turn to Page...uh....well that doesn't really work on the computer. Crap. The short ending: Watch the video and relive the AWESOME that is Rockapella. Be careful...the blond guy might make your dog howl during those high notes! If you missed out on the whole Carmen Sandiego/Rockapella experience, now you too can have a taste of the early nineties. Back then it was all about the acapella bands, baby. Acapella Vocal Band or Take Six, anyone???




***

The long ending:

So where in the world have I been this week? I only wrote one post and I actually wrote that at the end of LAST week!
Well, I stayed within the borders of Indiana...but here's some of the highlights.

Monday: The usual. Hang around the house with the kids. Do some blogging and watch the kids play Wii. Try to be moderately productive and do a load of laundry and the dishes. Play some Chutes and Ladders. Make sure the kids and I are dressed by the time Frank comes home from work and dinner is started. We did our taxes after dinner. Woot. At least we get a refund. Although we need to double check the rental house end of things. That's new to us, and you would think two people with college educations could figure out such things, especially since we have "people" with H & R Block and all...but it seems as though their "people" don't appear as a holograph in your living room and explain tax jargon at a 5 year old level, which is really what we need....

Tuesday: Day of Birthday Fun! Since we had a lot going on Wednesday, Frank took Tuesday off work. We had a pretty relaxing morning and went to IHOP for lunch. On national pancake day no less! And we ran into a guy who goes to the local International House of Prayer (the other IHOP!). I think God had a good laugh about that. I certainly did. The irony was sweet. And so were the pancakes. After that we road tripped to Columbus, IN and dropped off the kids at Frank's parents. They entertained the kiddos for the night which was pretty last minute...I appreciate them so much! Frank and I went to Indianapolis. The plan was to visit the big electronics store there and check out the new IMAX theater. We ended up going to the store first. It was pretty cool, even for an electronically challenged person such as myself. We went to the theater and found that even though they show IMAX movies, they don't do it very often and next one wasn't worth the money or the wait. So we browsed the new shopping center near the theater and ended up having a nice dinner. I know! That's MY idea of a night out, not Frank's! I was feeling kind of wild and had some kind of Vietnamese salad with shrimp and mango and cucumber and what looked like little clovers...but it was good. We even got free dessert because they had a promo that when the stock market is up, every table gets free dessert. So of course Frank breaks out the computer/phone/furby and looks up the info...stocks are up! Dessert for us! We got back home pretty darn late for a weekday and drove quite a bit, but we had a lot of fun. If nothing else, it was nice to have conversations not interrupted by "Mommy. Mommy. Moooooommy. MOMMY! I want juice."

Wednesday: Got up early for pre-school. Drug sleepy children out of bed. Everything went pretty smoothly despite the lack of sleep for us all. I did a little easier lesson than usual about numbers just to make sure I made it through the morning. We did a little worksheet on our favorite number and then I helped them write it out in Spanish and say it. Most of the kids picked their age...3, 4, 5. Then I got to the last class and they picked numbers like 4,800 and 10,000 and 1000780278. I just wrote "muchos" on the paper of that last kid....
After preschool we have lunch at "Miss Amy's" as the kids call her. I hate calling her "my pastor's wife" because she's so much more than that. She's my friend, my pastor, my spiritual mentor and more! But she is also married to my pastor. As always, our kids were a little wild and my kids throw a fit every time they have to leave, but we had a good time, good talks, and her food is always delish. We came home and vegged for a bit in front of cartoons. Then it was off to church in the evening. When we got home, we put the kids in bed and laid down for a few minutes, and fell fast asleep at 9:30. Oh well. So much for an exciting birthday for Frank! Welcome to your thirties.

Thursday: Baby Jay had his 6 month check up at the doctor. Even though he's 7 months old. Yeah, I'm slow like that. He checked out fine. He's made it back on to the big side of the "normal" range for height and weight now. For awhile he was off the charts big! He got three shots, which he wasn't too happy about, but he got over it quickly and took a nice nap. It's funny. I cried and cried when Annabelle got her shots as a baby, and now I almost have to keep myself from laughing because Jay just gets SOOOO mad and it's cute. Anna and Joey got stickers from the nurse, so they were happy. I'm surprised she was that nice...Annabelle got a little TOO curious at one point when the nurse and I were distracted and almost took one of the syringes off the table. We celebrated a good doctor visit by going to Little Caeser's at Kmart for the$5 large pizza special and indoor playplace. Spring come quickly! Almost 5 year olds and 3 year olds need some outside time! And so does their mom! After play and pizza we picked up a couple things at Kmart before Jay started to wake up from his nap and realize that his poor legs were sore from the shots. It was spaghetti for dinner and playing Frank's new Wii game before bedtime.

Friday: Time to clean! The house was a mess from the hallway project plus being in and out all week, so I cleaned as much as I could. Plus I am going to start being the back-up babysitter for one of my friends when her regular sitter cannot watch her little boy. She was coming over for a few minutes after work to talk details, so I wanted to make sure she felt like her son would be with a competent and put together person who could keep the house clean. Yeah, she probably could see right through that...but it WAS nice to have a clean house for about 3 minutes. For dinner I made pork chops and fried potatoes. It was a kind of vindication because my last couple attempts at them have been pretty horrible. It seemed like I did the same exact thing as the other times, so why do they turn out so different? Annabelle and I also had a very nice conversation about the fruits of the spirit. Yeah, I know. She's FOUR. But she memorized them for kid's church, but I hate to have her do that without knowing at all what it means. So I found my self giving examples of "self-control" and "faithfulness" at a four year old level. Not easy, but I think she got most of it.

Saturday: Both Annabelle and Joey climbed in bed with us and at about 4 am I got sick of the clingy-ness and went and slept in Annabelle's bed. I then proceded to have a dream about a girl I knew in college being in prison. I guess I was going to visit her and there was this scary school marm of a lady who kept yelling that I wasn't supposed to be there and got mad and started beating this girl up and for some reason my parents were there and I was afraid they were going to get yelled at, too...
Ahhh well. It's better than the dream where Frank turned into a zombie.

Anyway, I was glad to get up and get the kids some breakfast. After that I braved Wal-Mart on a Saturday because we were completely out of food. I saw one of the kids from the youth center, so it was good to see how she was doing. After getting home and putting everything away, we had a little time to rest before getting everything ready for church. I took a little nap and watched Notre Dame lose a basketball game (darn U Conn). Then we started the Great Church Prep. No matter what time we start to get ready for church we seem to always be late. Not late to church...we, as the music peeps, tend to get there way early to warm up and do a little practicing before the service, but it always seems to be later than we want it to be and we get rushed. Which always makes me grumpy. It's so nice to try to lead worship after yelling at your children...especially after you explained self-control to them the day before. But today I was determined to not let the little stuff make me angry and I would just give it to God. Breath. Pray. Ask God for help. It worked pretty well. We even did a little devotion in the car on the way there to get us ready for worship. Hoorah!

We had a little bit more responsibility than usual since our pastors were gone for the night, but it went really well and it's nice to see the unity of the group even when the pastors are not there. God was definitely in it...things just flowed today. Props to Frank, Larry, and Holli for doing the extra stuff to make the service a go...I didn't do a whole lot of extra stuff except for find the communion stuff and buy grape juice and bread. Strange that I've pretty much been a Christian my whole life, but this was the first time that I had any part of arranging for communion.

So there you have it. A slightly busier than usual week in the life of me. Are you wishing you would have chosen the short ending now? Yeah, I always felt that way about Choose Your Own Adventure, too. Now Encyclopedia Brown, that's a whole different story....

You Da Man

One day, I got an email from my beloved. The subject- Why did you marry me? The content- this picture.

He's really a very attractive man (Code phrase for HOTT, as the kids say). He's very smart. He's very talented. He just has this uncanny ability to make himself look...well....like he's a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

And somewhere along the way he turned from this fun loving, free wheeling, "guy in a band" in college....



To this guy...who has been married for more than 7 years, has three kids, is juggling church leadership, grad school, a career...not to mention a blogging wife who has a need to share personal things with the whole wide cyber world.



But obviously he has never stopped making me laugh, especially during the times when I need it the most. His thirtieth birthday is on Wednesday. Unlike some people, he's looking forward to it. He says people finally start to respect you at 30. I don't think posting these pictures is going to help anyone else respect him more (tee hee), but I respect and love him more than I could ever express. God knew what He was doing when he put us together.

These are for you, Frankie! Happy Birthday!

More Helpful Than Most Internet Surveys

The other night I was kind of aimlessly wandering around in cyberspace...and I found a link on a church website to a spiritual gifts test online. Well, I haven't taken one that I can remember, so I did the best I could to answer the questions among the normal chaos of my house.

I know tests like these aren't the absolute authority of what you can and cannot do for the kingdom of God, and some of the answers may change on any given day, but I did find it to be quite helpful. If nothing else, it really confirmed that I am working in the areas that I am gifted in, and that is encouraging. It also let me think about my life in a little different light.

If you are interested in taking the test, you can find it here.
I don't know much about how it was put together, but it does have a nice little introduction and it's fairly easy and simple to take. It also defines the gifts and includes scripture references with each definition. As to what is considered a "spiritual gift" and what is not? I may have to research that more. Some of these seem like traits that ALL Christians should have, don't they? I welcome your ideas...

So what did I score highest in?
Well, I took it twice and the top gift both times was music, so that's kind of nice to see since that's my main role at my church.
I love to worship with music and help others do the same!

What was next?
Missionary and Poverty were in the top four both times. No secret that I've always had a big heart for those close and around the world who don't know God, so the missionary thing makes a lot of sense to me. I never even knew poverty was a specific gift, which was the biggest surprise and eye opener for me. Here's their definition for it:
"Poverty (voluntary) - The special ability God gives to some to purposely live an impoverished lifestyle to serve and aid others with their material resources."
Now I am definitely NOT in poverty as most of the world and even the U.S. would define it. We are well fed, our needs are met and we even have some luxuries (Internet, duh!). And some of our lack of cash flow isn't necessarily by choice(uh, maybe a lack of making the best choices!)...but some of it IS... If I learned anything from this, it is to view poverty as a gift from God instead of thinking of it as something that must be overcome. And that I like to give of my material resources.

Honorable mentions?
Teaching, Writing, and Giving are all in there...so are Pastoring (the dreaded P word!) and Mercy...

What came in dead last?
Celibacy. Ha! Kind of felt like those questions didn't apply since I'm very happily married and really couldn't imagine life otherwise. Tongues and Interpretation of Tongues were down at the bottom, too. At least the tongues thing doesn't freak me out like it used to. I totally see Biblical support for it and see that others DO have these gifts, but I personally have not experienced either.

So, has anyone else taken a test like this? Did it teach you something? What did you learn? Should we lobby for Humor and Sarcasm to be added to the list of gifts?

If I Made a Video About Today...

I would want it to be like this!

God, I am RUNNING after your heart today with my crazy little family and my dog...




P.S. Sorry, still no Snuggie video yet.

Sick Leave

I'm taking a sick day today. Can you do that from a blog? Good thing Frank doesn't have to work today. Nothing serious, just a bad cold and general yuckiness. Maybe it came from this incident at preschool last week. Keep in mind I probably said more than half of this in Spanish, but I don't have the patience to figure out how to do accent marks and upside-down exclamation points on a Mac today, and I'm not writing in Spanish incorrectly because that bugs me.

Beth: Stand up, please! Let's sing "Pulgarcito!" Everyone ready? One, two, three....
AHHHHH! (I see third kid down in the circle has more snot hanging out of his nose than I ever thought possible.)
Beth: Um, I think you need a tissue.
Kid: I don't know where they aaaaarrrrrrre! (super whiny.)
Beth: (Thinking...WHY didn't his mom keep him home today?) I'll get it. Here. (Wipes nose of kid. Gets a little bit on her finger because the volume of snot is more than the generic one-ply tissue can handle. Stomach turns a little and thinks...I hope I don't catch whatever it is he has.)
Beth: Okay, let's sing! (Makes a mental note to find anti-bacterial gel as soon as class is over, but alas, the damage has been done.)

At least it's better than the stomach flu I got last year. I won't describe that for you. You're welcome.

Top Ten Reasons the Snuggie Video Isn't Done Yet

10. I'm trying to beat my record of correct questions in a row on TV Quiz Show on the Wii. I wish it would quit asking me sports questions. Or at least limit the sports questions to: IU basketball from the years 1990-2000, Colts football 2004-present, and the Olympics.

9. I've been being a nosy neighbor. Our neighbors got busted and taken away the other night (I'm pretty sure it was drug charges...) while we were filming the Snuggie video. Nothing like groovin' in your Snuggie and then looking out the window and seeing 5 cop cars. Don't worry Mom, there's a whole vacant lot between them and us. And now there are two less dogs to shoot with pellet guns. I joke because I'm not sure how to handle it. I alternate between praying for them and being mad that such evil stuff is so close to my children. And I constantly watch their house now.

8. I've been a social butterfly. Flit, flit. I have seen people outside my own family for six days in a row. That might be a record in Beth's New Life as a Recluse, I mean, Stay-At-Home Mom.

7. I love watching the local news. I mean really, not only am I informed, it's just chock full of funny stuff. Yesterday, the weather man had to honor the 6 year anniversary of the snow rollersin our area. We take the weather very seriously, folks.

Yeah, the Daily Show even made fun of Terre Haute for that promo, and then Terre Haute people got made because Jon Stewart couldn't pronounce "Terre Haute" right...I'd show that clip, but it may not be suitable for young viewers. ;)
And one of the top stories last night came from my county. If I was still working for Girl Scouts, you had better believe that wouldn't have happened on my watch.

6. Annabelle, Joey, and Baby Jay. Enough said.

5. I have company coming! My friend is coming to visit tomorrow with her baby, and my parents are coming this weekend for Baby Jay's dedication at church. Exciting stuff! Exciting enough to warrant drastic things like dusting and vacuuming!

4. The weather was warm for about 2.6 days. I mean over 60 degrees in February! In Indiana! So we went to the playground and took some walks and generally stayed outside as long as possible.

3. I now have 200 Facebook friends. It proves my diagnosis as a very extroverted introvert. Or is it the other way around? Anyway, props to my mom for coming up with that term, because it does describe both of us very well.

2. Me and God have been having some good times lately. God likes it that way and so do I.

1. Frank has more important stuff to do than edit video of his spastic wife dancing to hits of the 90's. I keep telling him things like work, homework, church, kids, me, the hallway renovation, etc., are silly and shouldn't take away from the AWESOME that is the Snuggie video, but he doesn't seem to understand that.

So I guess the waiting will have to continue. Until then...
More of Beth's International Dance Crazes! I don't speak Romanian, but I would totally dance on a wing of a plane any day with these guys.

Get Pumped

The Snuggie Video is in progress! At long last! Not quite ready for this post...but the next??

While you wait, here is something to broaden your cultural horizons. Please note that Frank and I have loved this video before the advent of its popularity on YouTube. His music professor showed it to his class in college. Of course we immediately made a copy of the VHS tape and shared it with the impressionable youth of our church... Sometimes I wonder why parents let their kids hang out with us.

Without further ado, I present for your viewing pleasure:
Tunak Tunak Tun