Burning the Midnight Oil

Ah it's after 2:00 am and tomorrow is a busy busy day. Why am I awake? one might ask. I don't know. I wasn't. I went to sleep for awhile. Then I guess Rod's bad dream woke me up. He was mumbling about something and I asked him if he was okay. He rolled over, with a seemingly alert expression on his face and mumbled something incoherent. I asked him "what?" and he said very clearly, "I'm just getting something," and then threw the covers over his head (that's odd)...and promptly fell back into a deep sleep. Then I started a coughing fit, so I thought I better get up and take some more allergy medicine. So I got my first grumblings of criticism from church people about some of the things in the bulletin...I only put in what I am told. I don't write anything special and unique. I mainly just pick out the cover picture and "design" the rest. My very Christian response was "well, I'm not getting paid to do this, and if someone has problems with it they can do it themselves." Now, of course I don't mind if someone lets me know that their name was spelled wrong or there was a mistake in information or something like that. Obviously, those things need to be fixed...but when you start grumbling about "I don't think this should go here and I don't like the way you put that there...blah blah" that's when I get irritated. Changing subjects: Julianne is an amazing little girl. I hate that I can't be home with her every day. She's always doing something new and cute. I think she has her daddy's tendency to talk in her sleep and whatnot. The other night at around 11:30 or so (long after she'd gone to sleep) we suddenly heard her laugh really really loudly. It was her cute laugh that she does when we are tickling her or something. That was the only thing we heard from her...she was asleep. It was sooo cute. Well, the boys are coming tomorrow. They are finally out of daycare and spending more time with their mom, which I think is a good thing. Taylor tells me every weekend now how he didn't have to go to daycare and he got to stay home with his mom. The happier he is at his mom's house makes him happier at our house. Mark and I have a pretty close bond...mostly because he thinks I'm really funny I think. He tells me that "the funniest one in the whole family." There's still an issue sometimes of what they should call me. They both still call me "Allyson" when they are trying to get my attention or when they are around their mom, but Mark, when he's talking about me in 3rd person always refers to me as "mom" or "mommy." He started referring to me as his mom to his friends at church. He says stuff like "My mom says I can't run around..." or whatever. I love it! Last year, he would launch into this long explanation about how I wasn't his real mom and that I was his stepmom and he had two moms...etc etc. He's progressed a lot. Another example of the third person "mom" reference is stuff like "I'm going to tickle mommy's feet!" and he'll come over to tickle me. On all the pictures he draws too he has me labeled as "mom." Taylor's not as easy to win over in that respect, although he is extremely lovey and loves to give hugs and kisses. He's a lot better at showing affection that way than Mark is. They are both so unique. I think I will make breakfast for dinner tomorrow night when they get here and have chocolate chip pancakes (using my beautiful new kitchenaid mixer, of course). Last time I made them, I turned around and everyone's face (including Rod's) was covered in chocolate and they all looked blissfully happy...this far off look in their eyes that can only be brought on by the taste of good chocolate (I've been buying the dark chocolate chips...they taste better somehow). Well, anyway, work is the same...still pointless and my boss is still insane. Funny, you might think I'm horrible for talking behind her back this way, but I'm really not. I've said all these things to her face. My motto is "I won't make fun of you behind your back for anything I haven't made fun of to your face." Oh yeah and it also looks like we might be getting our review writing gig back. Rod and Bob had another concert at Youth for Christ on Tuesday night. It was awesome. I'd never seen kids so intent on Bob's testimony and 8-10 kids got saved! It is amazing to see the work God's doing through Bob's "gospel rap" and Rod's beautiful voice. I'm glad to be a part of it, even though I am the designated picture-taker (which is scary in itself if some of you have seen my picture taking non-skills...I'm really good at bow-hunting though!) and otherwise just sit at the "merch" table. I love it though...the atmosphere at these concerts is always great. Well, I better go back to bed; I'm getting pretty sleepy. I hope you enjoyed my discombobulated ramblings. I love you all!

Lead Bread and Creationism

Well, I guess I need to blog a little more often. I've not really had a chance to be on the computer much at home. We upgraded our computer a little and Rod can play his games now...so needless to say I don't get on here too often. Although I am on a computer all day at work anyway...that's enough to dampen my desire to get on the computer when I get home. Even now, Mark is looking over my shoulder asking if he can play his Transformer computer game *sigh*...in a minute. Okay, so work is just kind of a bummer. I told my boss that her business is failing because of her. She did the usual "try to blame everyone else" game, but I wouldn't let her. I told her she wasn't focused and she said that we weren't focused...I told her we were as focused as our boss since we do what she tells us to do. Ah well, I know I didn't get through to her, but at least I let off some steam. I've been using my new mixer a lot (I got my red kitchenaid finally). It mixes up dough like a dream...except when the dough hook was on too low. Then I got lead bread because some metal chips got into the dough. I was very sad at the waste of ingredients. I fixed the problem though, so everything should be ok from here out. A few couples are leaving our church, all in secrecy or something. Nobody is saying why. The sad thing is...one couple is our small group leaders and the other couple were our really good friends. It's not fair. Everyone that becomes our friends seems to leave the church...we have a bad track record for sure. But we are pretty sure they didn't have a problem with us (not like Jessie and Leo for those of you who know that situation) but have some problem with the church that they aren't sharing. Our small group leaders have become our good friends and they have asked us to keep coming on Friday nights for group; their family situation is a lot like ours. We have been able to vent and encourage each other a lot in these last few months. The church is frowning on us continuing to be friends with them (I guess because they left the church on bad or no terms and they don't want us to be influenced by them). I told the pastor's wife that we would remain friends with them and that we were not easily influenced to leave a church just because someone else is. We strongly believe that you don't leave a church just because you don't necessarily agree with everything the pastor does or the church does. Everyone's advice when we talk about something we disagree with in the church is "well leave," but that's not the answer. Even Martin Luther knew that when he tried to change the Catholic Church. He tried to purify it from within and they kicked him out because of his "radical" ideas (like faith alone)...he didn't leave by choice. Changing subjects, after visiting the Creation Museum when we visited Mom and Dad's this winter, I am sooo pumped up about arguing for creation science. I've been laughed at and looked at like I'm a simple person who "just doesn't know a lot about science" because if I did of COURSE I would believe in evolution...WRONG. I get jazzed when I get to debate an evolutionist. Yesterday it was my boss. I love it when they bring up supposed "transformational" organisms whose fossils are found. Don't these scientist realize that thousands if not millions of species have died out since the flood, and some of them have yet to be discovered. Simple logic, if someone could get past the scientific jargon, tells us that the earth is not millions of years old and we didn't evolve from monkeys!! What I try to explain is that both sides of the debate are intelligent scientists...it's simply that each group begins from a different premise: Creationists from the Bible and Evolutionists from Darwin's Origin of Species. After several debates with an evolutionist I used to work with, I finally was able to get him to see that creation scientists were not ill-educated religious fanatics and if he didn't change his mind about evolution, he at least respected that creation is simply a different viewpoint, not what other call an "uneducated religious belief." My boss told me yesterday "science always comes first"...meaning before religion. I thought that was interesting since God created science...oh wait, then you'd have to believe in creation, dang.