Random thoughts

Since I sent word to my friends about the blog I have gotten some interesting responses. Shortly after I posted I got a call. I almost didn't take the call because it was from the National Gaurd. My first thought was that they were looking for donations, but I thought the least I could do is answer it and say no thank you, BTW remove me from your call list. I was so happy I took the call! It was my firend Garrison who is currently in Iraq. He's not in the military (thank God for his mother's sake), but he's over there supporting the military by fixing their computers. His brother Duncan had been in Iraq for a while with the Marines, but is now in DC. I think he longs to return to Iraq. Garrison's mother is actually scheduled to go to Iraq soon and start working as well. Garrison and I have a very sordid tale. We met at UT in Senior Seminar (Unruly Women of the Rennisance) where we proceeded to inform the professor that he was full of it. You should never teach a class with the word "unruly" in it unless you're ready for some strong oppinionated personalities. From there G (Nick name for Garrison) and I have shared many a holiday and other life events. He was even at my house (along with several other guys) the night Zander decided to be born. They really cleaned up quickly! Of course they remember the story wrong, but I let them.

Any way I was talking to G about thte time Zander decided to fill his water gun with strawberry milk and shoot up the walls down stairs. There were beautiful pink streaks every where. Nathan was so upset he had to focus on cleaning so that he didn't beat the tar out of Z. I couldn't help it so I had to frequently excuse myself to laugh. There were pink splotches on the carpet where he secretly filled the gun. Not a wall was safe. It was very creative. After I hung up with G I though - I should have told him about the incident on Sunday.

This past Sunday I went to Scrapbook Crossing and taught a small class about this type of circle journal that I'm doing with my friend Karen in Arizona. Any way, I got home about 5:30 and was greated by Zander. He loves to great people at the door and walk them to their cars when they leave. Not sure if this is southern hospitality or just curiousness. Any way The first thing out of my mouth was "What is on your shirt?" Zander responded with "glue". I was thinking there is no way that is glue and I had all my glue with me. "Glue" did not make any sense. Any way As a dutiful mom I asked him to show me the glue. I was following him waiting for him to take me upstairs to my craft room and have him pull out something I forgot was there, but when he didn't go up the stairs a light bulb went off. He went to the laundry room instead. If you're a scrapper you'll get this quickly. I had recently bought bleach pens for scrapping, and they actually look like the tubes of glue I use for scrapping. Zander had bleached the whole front of his shirt and behind the door in the laundry room. I quickly moved the bleach pen completely out of his reach - he would have to get a ladder to reach it because I need one to reach it. He's just so darn creative!

Any way I also got an e-mail from my firend Tracy that she started a blog as well. She cracks me up! You'll just have to read it for yourself, because words cannot describe it. Right now we're e-mailing about how PC we need to be on blogs, and my thoughts right now are "My blog, my thoughts. Don't like it, don't read it". This has been a huge issue for me. I figure that people can say and do what ever they want. If they say or do something that offends me I have a few choices. Sit back and take it, kindly tell them I didn't like that (maybe bluntly the second time), or leave. Apparently there's adults out there who feel that they still need their mommies to intervine so when they don't like something they gossip about it, tell someone in a position of authority, or my ultimate favorite - cry about it. The problem with these latter actions is that you are not taking responsibility for yourself here. You are not doing anything to resolve your issue with it. In my classes I'm taking right now the teacher starts class with the statement "misery is optional". Now she's talking about temperature, food, and bathroom. I interpret that to mean that only you have control of what happens to you and how you respond to things that happen. I do not tolerate people who choose to be miserable, and I will not hesitate to tell them that they are doing it to themselves. You have the choice to do the tasks necessary to get you where you want to be in life, or you can choose to sit in front of your computer forever playing some stupid game watching your butt grow. You have the choice to have a negative outlook on life and have frequent illness, or you can change your attitude and get sick less - there've been studies. So MISERY IS OPTIONAL - make a choice!

Back to what I really wanted to talk about today. I was sitting in class last night (topic was about classroom climate) and thinking about things. I wrote "Learning is an adventure. You don't know where it will take you, who you'll meet or what you'll see. But the result is wonderful." I truly believe that learning is a life long adventure and that we should take every opportunity for a new path. Each day as we go through our jobs (or the lack of job) we interact with the environment and people. Each time we interact with something there's potential for growth. We could learn a new fact, or see the world in a new light. We are all individuals and we all process things differently that's why things can be new to us all the time. It's our choice to open our eyes and learn about the wonders of God and his creation or to close them and say I already know about that. If we close them it's like we're saying - I know as much as God so He Can't share anything new. I know this is not true because I am not God. I am here to learn about Him and I plan to learn new things each day. Just as we are told to pray with out ceasing we should learn without ceasing. I think that's what prayer is, learning. Opening our minds to new thoughts, and ideas. Listening for a lesson from God about ourselves and the world. So Pray Without Ceasing so you can Learn Without Ceasing.