I Used to Come Here A Lot

Hi. My name is Chel. This used to be a really cool hang out for me. Perhaps if you were to dig in the deep recesses of your mind, Blogger, you might remember me.

I used to write two and three, maybe even four times a week. Now it's been...well, a long time.

No, it's not you. It's me.

I happen to be in an insanely busy time right now. It's not that I don't want to come visit you, Blogger, it's just my time has not really been my own lately. I know, it hurts. It hurts me, too.

You have been so faithful to me in the past...even at 3 in the morning when I can't sleep...you've been there. I remember cuddling up in the big red chair, nestled under a throw blanket, listening to Frank Sinatra and pouring my heart out to you.

OH how I miss those days.

And then when my relief was complete...you had so many friends that you shared with me. I made such sweet, precious friends and I miss them dearly. Would you please tell them for me?

No, I can't stay. I really mustn't. Please understand. I long to be here with you, making that lovely rhythm of fingertips and keys...dancing our way around this crazy life. *sigh*

Oh I do hope that you will be patient, my dear Blogger, and not turn away. Wait for me...I will come back to you. Life has not been the same since I wandered away. But I promise to make amends...and make it up to you. Only don't walk away.

See you soon.
Chel

Let's Play!

My SIL, Jennifer, is playing a game and I think I will play along. Here are the rules:

It's open to everyone, in the United States, who reads my blog.

The first FIVE people to respond to this post will get something bought or made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I buy or make!

2- What I choose will be just for you.

3- It will be done this calendar year. (that's right, before December 31, 2009!)

4- You have no clue what it's going to be. I'm learning to sew. It could be a new creation of mine or I just may see something I have to buy (two of!).

5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. But I would never send something that I didn't like myself!

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and make the same offer to the first 5 people who respond on your blog entry, thereby continuing the fun!

The first 5 people to do so, and leave a comment telling me they did, will win a FAB-U-LOUS gift from me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it! Sounds like fun, right? So, let's play!

Project 365 -- #10 & 11

Welcome back to my two-week version of Project 365! I know, nobody else is doing it this way; I don't even intend on doing it this way. Really, I don't! I did finally figure out the cause, however. Of course I have known that this has been going on, but I hadn't associated it with my inability to post these more than every two weeks until now.

My husband is a computer hog.

At least on the weekends, anyway. He figures I have it during the day all week, so when he gets home it's his turn. I can understand that. Except I hardly ever get on Blogger all week until the evenings...when he wants it too! So it's been a never-ending saga of don't-get-off-the-chair-unless-you're-done-with-the-computer-because-opposite-spouse-will-immediately-displace-you-upon-your-departure.

How's that for a title?

So I guess until we replace the pooped out PC with a new laptop for my beloved, we're gonna continue the game. Maybe I can increase my skill level and win more often...?

On with Project 365:

Sonday, March 1
Mini me has been playing legos again. That's Indiana Jones on his measly little raft about to outwit the snake, the shark and the croc with one fell swoop.
"Snakes...why does it have to be snakes...?"

Monday, March 2
We had chocolate chip pancakes for supper. Does anybody else do that? We love it. These were the last three that I unintentionally poured to look like Mickey Mouse. Brown Eyes pointed it out and asked if he could add the chips. What a sweetie.

Tuesday, March 3
Lil'bit just being Lil'bit. Bedhead included.

Wednesday, March 4
Brown Eyes and his latest creation...some kinda somethin'. With wings. :-)

Thursday, March 5
Today is my sister's (Chel at Abiding Branch) birthday! Hope you had a sweet day, sistah! I wish I could have been there with you.
But this here has nothing to do with Chel.
Sorry for the tangent.
This is another one of my old books that I am currently reading aloud to my kids in the afternoons. I am thinking about typing up one of the short stories out of here so you can get a taste of what these awesome books are like. This one is called, "Nuts for Boys to Crack." Now you know I had to get that one.

Friday, March 6
We had the prettiest weather that day, so this is Lil'bit riding his bike down the dirt road by our house. You can't tell here, but there is a steep slope right in front of the camera, so he and his training wheels were gettin' some serious speed on.

Saturday, March 7
Another gorgeous day, so after daddy did some work, we all went to the park at our church. This is a cool web-thing that they climb, and that's a very proud Brown Eyes on top of it.

Sunday, March 8
Yet another sign of spring. Lil'bit brought me these flowers today.

Monday, March 9
Speaking of whom....what a face!

Tuesday, March 10
Today was my sweet mommy's birthday! I sure wish I could have been with you on your special day, Mom! I love you!!
This picture is the boys playing football in the late afternoon.

Wednesday, March 11
Lil'bit and his breakfast.

Thursday, March 12
Brown Eyes before his haircut, which will be tomorrow...

Friday, March 13
Brown Eyes after I gave him a serious haircut! Listen, I don't do the barber shop haircuts. If I have to do this, I need low maintenance. He really seems to like his hair like this. He's told me so several times since Friday night. Really, he has!

Saturday, March 14
DH's new project since he finished the bar-b-que pit from H-E-double-hockey-sticks. This is the front of an old (like antique, but very good) welding machine that he acquired. He is now not only fixing it up, he's "souping" it up. He cut off the front of the frame and built one out of stainless steel in its stead. It's going to be a showpiece when he's done with it. ;-)

Okay, so that's it! I hope you enjoyed your tour...now go check out Sara at Make Music from Your Heart to the Lord to see some more of Project 365. And tell her I said Hi, would ya?

HE DID IT!

He finally did it! After two whole years with nary a haircut...DH finally got it whacked. And good, too. He started out just growing it to see what it would do, and quickly got the idea to keep growing it to donate it to an organization called Children with Hairloss.

It's similar to Locks of Love, except the recipients' families do not pay for their wigs; they are supplied free of charge for children with medical reasons for hair loss. I heard of this organization from a mom at our homeschool co-op in which we participate. She has a daughter that has a disease I can't spell that causes her hair to not grow. She was like 5 when she had her first haircut! Her hair grows in patches, and either breaks off or falls out before it can get much longer than 3 or 4 inches. So Children with Hairloss will be donating one new wig per year until she it 21 years old...is that amazing, or what?

My DH has the kind of hair that makes women sick. Including me. I'm kind of glad it's gone now, because it's just so wrong on so many levels for a man to have prettier hair than his wife.





See what I mean? That's natural curl and body in that tail.

Okay, now you might need to sit down for these next few. I chuckle every time I see this next one, because it reminds me of a half an octopus sitting on his head:









I actually asked permission to post these, by the way. And I'm posting them anyway. :-) You can thank me later.

This one is the "first cut." Too late to chicken out now.








And the results are.................................................................................................



Here are all four decapitated ponytails. Well, they are! I'm thinking those ponytails owned that head of his just as much as he does!

Okay, here's the real result:



Captivating, isn't it? She doesn't know that she just sheared about 20 years off of his face.

20 pounds, too...of hair that is.

What do you think? Do you like it long or clean cut better?

Project 365 -- #8 & 9

Lest you come down on me for breaking the rules, Sara, I must apologize upfront for making two-week entries...two posts in a row. I'm sorry, my dear. I'm not intending on doing the whole project this way, I promise! I would much rather post every week so they don't pile up!

So with that said, here we go:

Sunday, Feb. 15
This is the last time DH would blow dry his hair with my pink hairdryer.
:-)

Monday, Feb. 16
Lil'bit came back from the creek with a surprise!
It's funny because I would never, ever have picked that up for fun when I was a kid.

Tuesday, Feb. 17
First sign of Spring

Wednesday, Feb. 18
DH kept his hair appointment.
I plan to write a post about it this week, so further pictures are forthcoming.

Thursday, Feb. 19
We had our homeschool co-op today. One of the classes I teach is my son's 5th grade Astronomy class. These are the Jupiters that we painted today to add to our foam solar system.

Friday, Feb. 20
Continuing to paint the bar-b-q pit...more on that to come too!

Saturday, Feb. 21
Yet another "friend" the boys found at the creek.
That, my friend, is what you call a crayfish.
Also known as a crawdad.
Mini me found it under some moss in the creek behind our house. Never a dull moment.

Sunday, Feb. 22
Another sign of Spring...I'm so ready.

Monday, Feb. 23
This is a sneak preview of the pit we FINISHED and delivered on this day!
As my friend, Lidna Linda over at Second Cup would say, "Woo to the Hoo!"

Tuesday, Feb. 24
I took a couple of pictures that might be used in my new blog background that is ALSO forthcoming! I can't wait to show you what Jackie at Our Moments Our Memories has done for me!

Wednesday, Feb. 25
Mini me's newest lego creation. It's a playground, complete with monkey bars, a swing set, slide, and benches for old people. :-)

Thursday, Feb. 26
More signs of Spring!
This is one of the 3 plumeria plants that we have. This flower stem has been growing slowly all winter long...I guess this one's looking forward to Spring like we are!

Friday, Feb. 27
I caught Lil'bit checkin' out his abs in the mirror. What a stud.

Saturday, Feb. 28
We're gonna be paying out big bucks one day for scuba lessons.
Swim, baby swim.

That's my two weeks. Thank you to Sara, our hostess, for being so understanding. Now y'all go check out the other participates in Project 365 over at her place, Make Music from Your Heart to the Lord.

I Can't BELIEVE I Haven't Told You This Yet

If you've been coming by here a while, you may remember from last August this post I wrote about Travis Cottrell coming to sing and lead music for our church on a particular Sunday. It was a very exciting day for me, to say the least. I mean, I had been jamming out to Travis's (Travis' ?) Alive Forever CD for a while, and I had absolutely no idea when I walked in that we had a guest that day. So needless to say, I was excited. A little.

So anyway, I gained maintained composure very well, I think. Even when I got the opportunity to meet him and talk to him and walk with him through the sanctuary. (*squeal!*)

Eh hem, as I was saying...composure. I had it. And so did he. He was very sweet and polite, and he even joked around with us a bit as we all walked together. That was a great day.

Sunday night a few weeks ago, I was very well aware of the special guests that were going to be there. It was Travis primarily, as he was to be recording a DVD and CD that will come out later this year.

If you've ever attended a large church, you'll appreciate the need for getting good seats. :-) They didn't open the doors to the worship center until 5:00 pm, but we were right by the door when they opened them. Everyone standing by the door was nervously commenting about the whole WalMart incident over Christmas, and that we all needed to be aware so we didn't get trampled!

Let's just say a few people showed up.

Well, along with Travis and his fellow musicians, we had the grand pleasure of hosting Beth Moore as well. You can only imagine the amount of estrogen running through the aisles that night. It was great. Travis said it reminded him of the "Capri Pant Conferences" that he does with Beth. Funny guy.

My only regret: I seriously thought that pictures would not be allowed since it was being recorded. Duh. So no camera. I know, what kind of blogger am I?

The concert was unbelievable. I truly cannot describe to you how powerful and God-honoring that night was. Some of my highlights were:

1) Travis sang his own version of Victory in Jesus...with flair. I can't wait to have that on CD...it was SO much fun!

2) The choir was fantastic! I believe there were about 300 in our choir loft that night. Unbelievable.

3) One of his back-up singers came to the foreground and sang "Mercy Seat" or some people call it "I'm Runnin.'" That was the most surreal song...the presence of God was so strong I'm surprised we didn't all fall flat on our faces or something. A.MA.ZING doesn't cut it. I'm just sayin.

4) There was one point about half way through the concert and after a very powerful song that a man went on stage and began quietly discussing something with Travis. We were all in wonder as we were trying to wind down a bit from the adrenaline rush.

Finally, Travis addressed the crowd and said, "Okay, they're ready to start recording now!"

The crowed roared in laughter, and he did too. He said, though, that there was a computer glitch in that last song, and we were going to need to do that one again. It was going to take several minutes for them to fix whatever it was and be ready, and Travis didn't want the audience to lose the momentum we had going.

So they did an impromptu performance of "Shackles."

Talk about a par-tay right there in our church aisles! It was so much fun!! I told my friend sitting next to me that as many times as I've heard that song, I've never been in a place where I could really let loose and dance and sing the way I wanted to; I'm usually driving! We had a blast with that song.




5) And then there were times when we heard from Beth. Let's just say that she did not disappoint. She had a word for us about worship, particularly corporate worship, that helped keep us focused on the "Main Thang" rather than all the cameras, lights, and smoke.

6) Now, there's no spiritual implications on this one, but it deserves to be noted that Beth had on about the cutest little red and leopard print jacket I think this girl has ever seen. Alas, one cannot simply Google "red leopard print jacket" and find it. Believe me on this. But, oh my, was it cute.

7) Now I've saved the best for last: Since the doors opened at 5:00, I had to take Lil'bit in the Worship Center with me for a bit as the childcare did not open until 5:40. As I walked out of the sanctuary doors into the main thoroughfare (you laugh, but I kid not!) to get him to the preschool area, I saw this small group of people kind of all huddled around each other getting off the elevator right in front of me. They were about to cross the highway I was on to get back stage. Right in the middle of the huddle was none other than Beth Moore!

In disbelief, I mumbled under my breath, "You gotta be kiddin' me."

And she heard me.

She had her cell phone to her ear, was surrounded by people, and on her way back stage as things were about to get rolling within the next 20 minutes, so she had plenty of reasons to just keep on walking.

Do you know she didn't just keep walking?

She heard my astonishment, and looked me square in the eyes, and said, "How are you, darlin?" Can't you just hear her say that?

My reply: "I'm kind of freaking out a little here, Beth! How are you?"

Big, Texas-style grin from Beth: "Oh, you're such a sweet darlin, let me come over there and hug your neck!" She weaved herself out of all those people and hugged me like I was an old friend.

You know, fame changes some people; but for some, the Famous One keeps them humble enough to realize that we are all just people, made in God's image and working for His purposes together. Beth is one of those people, I'm convinced.

Once I got to the preschool department, I had to give the front desk my son's month and year of birth to find which room he would stay in. My mind was so preoccupied with my recent encounter that I couldn't think of it for a minute! As I apologized to the preschool worker for my absentmindedness because I was still trying to wrap my absent mind around what just happened, she just smiled and said that Beth had just come down to the preschool area to meet the workers since they were not able to attend the concert.

Godly character. There just is no substitute.

I haven't been able to find the name of the CD and DVD that will be coming out later this year, but be looking for it. I have two reasons for you to make the personal investment by watching that DVD: 1) You'll be able to, in a small way, share with me one of the most worshipful nights of my life; and 2) You'll be able to get a load of that uber-cute jacket of Beth's.

It is not to be missed.

Project 365 -- #6 & 7

We're at it again! Welcome to my week 6 and 7 of the infamous Project 365! This has been a real challenge, especially once the "novelty" of it wore off a bit. Taking a picture every day is not difficult, it's the remembering to take a picture...and then finding something interesting that I haven't already shot!


Well, despite the difficulties, I managed to get one for every day these last two weeks except for a couple. I was having an allergic reaction to some medication I was taking, and was popping Benedryl like it was candy. I don't know if that stuff affects everybody else like it did me, but I'm pretty sure I left the planet for about 5 days. I should be the textbook insomniac now that I've seemingly had a total of about 118 hours of sleep out of a possible 120 in those 5 days. It's no wonder parents joke about giving their toddler a dose of that stuff on an airplane...I wouldn't wake up from screaming jet engines either!

Anyway, on with the show:

Sunday, Feb. 1
I'll bet you can guess which Sunday this was...
Super Bowl Sunday...and my DH made me take a picture of Arizona while they were winning. It's not that he's a huge Cardinal fan, it's that he's very much an anti-Steelers fan. It's the Dallas Cowboy blue blood in him...he can't help it.

Sunday, Feb. 1
Since I missed a picture later on, I'll use two from this day.
This is how Lil'bit fell asleep. WITH his daddy coaching from the "sidelines."
No, I did not give him Benedryl.

Monday, Feb. 2
This is Mini Me playing computer games (probably Lego Star Wars)...again.
That boy would live on the computer if I let him.

Tuesday, Feb. 3
This was an amazing morning...the snowflakes you see were not only a neat surprise, (you northerners can quit rolling your eyes now), but it was truly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen weather-wise. The snowflakes were so tiny, and the sun was hitting them exactly right, so that from our back door you couldn't see the flakes themselves...only golden glitter.
Gorgeous.

Wednesday, Feb. 4
Daddy and Lil'bit snuggled on the big chair.

Thursday, Feb. 5
Mini Me doing some schoolwork.
Just so you can appreciate how much this picture means to me, Math used to be such a bear for him to work through. It's not that it was hard for him, but it didn't come as "easy" as all his other subjects, so he thought he just "wasn't good at it."
Now he's beyond that, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Friday, Feb. 6
Ugh...this is just a smidgen of the beginning of the
Great Horrific Allergic Reaction of 2009.
This is the last thing I remember until Wednesday.

Saturday, Feb. 7
This was the day my face and eyes started to swell. I thought I would thrill you with my pathetic "help me!" eyes. I literally forgot I took this picture until today, when I downloaded.

Sunday, Feb. 8
We went to Sunday School and then came home. My sock monkey slippers were my constant companion that day. Them and my Benedryl.

Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 9 & 10
Forget about it.

Wednesday, Feb. 11
I give you this shot, on this day, because DH has made an appointment -- one week from today -- to get his hair cut! All that hair is going to become a wig for some lucky little girl someday soon!

Thursday, Feb. 12
Gettin' a little artsy with this one.
I love old glass doorknobs. This is one of three that DH mounted on weathered cedar. We use them as coat racks and backpack hangers.

Friday, Feb. 13
You're gonna see some more of this, um, thing.
It's a bar-be-que pit that DH is going to overhaul for a guy. This is actually an older picture, but I wanted to show you what I've been working on today. And tomorrow, too. And the next day, and the next...seriously. I'll have some "after" pictures when we're done.

Saturday, Feb. 14
As DH and I were working on said pit, the boys were busy catching lizards and making a habit for them. There is a lizard on the left end of the bottom stick, dipping his head into water. The pile of rocks was a "cool shaded place" where the lizard could "sleep."

Now go see the others participating in Project 365 at Sara's Make Music from Your Heart to the Lord! It's a fun project...join in if you haven't already!