Happy Birthday Anna!

Couldn't you just eat her up?

Quoted

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

John Burroughs

Happy Birthday Kaylee

Sure. She's cute. Don't fall for it. She's the one your mama warned you about.

Sunday

Sundays are often yucky at our house. Kids leave. Kids come home. It's just always a day of general upheaval.

But some Sundays just go well.

Everyone is happy.

We have no idea why.

So we just enjoy it while it lasts.

Quoted

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."

Mae West

Happy Birthday Savannah

My baby is eleven.
How did this happen?
I still haven't lost the weight I gained when I was pregnant with her.
Maybe by the time she's sweet sixteen...

Scenes from Kline Manor

At dinner last night, I was telling the super exciting story of my experience as a TCAP procter at the kids' elementary school.

Me: Mostly I just read my book and handed out a bunch of tissues.

Ava: Joey from my class uses a lot of tissues.

Me: Maybe he has allergies.

Ava: No, he just has snot.

Easter 2009

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Quoted

"A man who chooses not to read, is just as ignorant as the man who cannot read."

Mark Twain

Teef!!!

Ava lost one of her front teeth.
At first she was really happy.


Then she saw the blood and became decidedly unhappy.



(Isn't this picture horrible? Doesn't it look like something truly tragic has happened to her?)

The next week she lost the other front tooth.


By this time, she was an old pro so even the bleeding didn't bother her.



The same night, both Savannah and Kaylee each lost a tooth. Savannah lost another one the next night and yesterday Anna lost one. I may have to start giving them all baby food again.

Quoted

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Book Review

VS

Both of these books are novels based upon biblical stories. Anita Diamont (author of The Red Tent) acted as a mentor for India Edghill (author of Queenmaker.) In my humble opinion, The Red Tent is a superior novel. Hang with me and I'll try to explain.

The Red Tent is the story of Jacob's only daughter, Dinah. In the book of Genesis, Dinah is mentioned along with a very short story about her. Diamont takes that story and builds a novel around it. She explores the relationship between Jacob's two wives (Dinah's mother Leah and Jacob's beloved wife Rachel) and the two handmaidens that were given as quasi-wives to him. The story works because it doesn't go against any biblical presentation of Dinah as a character. Her role in the actual biblical account is tiny. So Dinah was a blank slate for Diamont to create. The resulting novel is satisfying and compulsively readable.

Queenmaker would have been a comparable novel if it had been a story about a fictional character. Unfortunately, Edghill chose King David as her inspiration. That's where the trouble starts. The novel's main character is Michal. Michal is the daughter of King Saul and she is David's first wife. She is married to David before he is king. Had the author just centered her book on Michal and the life she lived where the bible is silent about her (which is a lot) things would have been ok. But she doesn't. Edghill bases almost the entire book on the biblical account of David's reign. It just doesn't work. If you have no appreciation for the bible, this probably won't bother you in the least. But, for me, it was impossible not to keep a running "David would never have done that" commentary going. The bible says that David was a man after God's own heart and while his faults were many, he just in no way resembles the manipulative character that Edgehill has created.

If you have to read just one of these, you should definitely go with The Red Tent. If you're not a bible purist, you'll probably enjoy Queenmaker as well. If you're a godless heathen, you should just skip them both.

Quoted

Freedom without responsibility is license and not liberty.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Recess

This picture goes a long way to heal some of my George Bush wounds. That's Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sitting at a picnic table. The President of the United States and the Secretary of State...sitting at a picnic table in front of a swingset at the White House. Obama has done much to make me happy in the last three months but something about this picture fills me with peace. Some days a heapin' helpin' of peace can go a long way.

Book Review

I bought this book at Walmart. What can I tell ya? I picked it up for a plane ride. Even bad books are often tolerable while trapped in a metal tube hurtling through the sky.

I didn't get a chance to read it until I got home. I wasn't expecting too much since it appeared to be a 'straight to paperback' kind of novel. It turned out to be fairly entertaining. The book is about a doctor who performs abortions and the effects of his work on his family and community. What surprised me is the way it made me really examine my attitude about the abortion issue.

I have always been pro-choice. But, to be honest, I have been pro-choice for the 13 year old girl who gets raped by her uncle and is not physically, emotionally or financially able to have a baby. I guess I have never been pro-choice for the person who says "my life is just not suited for a baby right now". I realize how jacked up that methodology is and I also realize that a true Pro-Choice advocate would gouge their eyes out after hearing such an argument. I can't help it. I'm a Baptist and a Democrat. I'm an annoying enigma. Jesus loves me and you're just gonna have to deal with it.

Read this book if you're stuck on an airplane. Otherwise, your life won't be diminished in the least if you skip it.

Quoted

While we continue to spend hundreds of billions on a dubious war on terror and a ludicrous war on drugs, we should be devoting our resources to a war on stupid.

-Rontun (Daily Kos commenter)

Movie Review

I've had this movie in my Netflix queue since it was released. It has always had a "Very Long Wait". Let me just tell you something. If you have a movie in your queue that is listed as "Very Long Wait" for over two months, you just need to get yourself to Hollywood Video and rent a copy immediately.

So I did.

If loving Kirk Cameron is wrong, I don't want to be right.
You heard me.
I love him.

I only mention this to admit my obvious bias in reviewing this movie. I knew I would be watching this flick alone because Kevin does NOT love Kirk Cameron. It's a character flaw of his that I have decided to overlook. So I watched the movie in the car while the girls were at choir practice.

What can I tell you? It's a cheesey, christian movie that made me cry for two full hours. The story deals with a couple on the brink of divorce and "The Love Dare" that the husband attempts in order to save his marriage. If I had watched this movie during my divorce, I probably would have been hospitalized. Even after all this time and a new, deliriously happy marriage, this movie uncovered many raw emotions for me. It was hard to watch people trying hard to save their marriage when I never got the opportunity to save my own.

I get very frustrated by the way our society values marriage. We live in a world where people give up too easily. Marriage is viewed as a contract that can be broken whenever we're 'unhappy'. I'll stop there but just know that I could blog about that last sentence for the next three years and it wouldn't be pretty.

Go ahead and watch this movie. It's not Oscar worthy. There are some scenes that are embarrassing. But overall, you will feel better after having seen it. And I bet you'll fall just a little bit in love with Kirk Cameron even if you don't admit it to anyone.