Stuck in Frump, Striving for Fab

This was written a couple of weeks ago...

Sunday mornings these past couple of months have been wonderful, because I get to sit through the entire church service.

The day begins when we arrive at church and go straight to Sunday School with our youth group teens.

Judah usually comes in there with us, as our smaller congregation has found it hard to keep find Little Tots workers for the Sunday School hour.

It's not often we make it all the way through the hour. Judah has the attention span of...well, a 3 1/2 year old boy, and tends to get really squirrelly after sugary treats like donuts and juice.

Those well-intentioned folks that brave working the Little Tot's class, for whatever reason, usually only last a few weeks.

I think this is because of the fact that Judah the three boys currently in that class are, together, a real handful. Yes, Judah and the twins are a force to be reckoned with.

Recently, my friend (the twins’ mother) had brought to church with them a toy motorcycle that Judah had left at their home the previous Sunday.

This toy is roughly the size of motorcycle Barbie would ride if she had a street racing bike. (Or does she? She's come a long way since the days of the fancy pink RV I used to play Barbies with at my friends house as a girl.)

This is one of those toys that has obnoxiously loud sound effects which I have elected never to buy for my own children, but am tortured with annoyed by on a regular basis anyway thanks to an uncle who thinks our boys need the noisiest toys on the market.

It's one of those toys which I loathe and feel like chucking off a twenty story building usually disable the sound effects for by removing the batteries, but somehow kept forgetting to do so. I think that is because it involves finding a Phillips screwdriver to open the battery case on the bottom, and me going to our garage to find a tool would be akin to asking Jeff to find me some scrapbooking eyelets in my craft room. A wild goose chase.

Which is the very reason it’s one of Judah’s favorite toys...because with him, the louder the better.

This is probably also why the twins mother wanted to return it to us so badly enjoyed playing with it so much during the week it was at their home.

Because of the fact there was no Little Tots class, the twin brothers were sitting with their mom and their visiting aunt in one of the adult Sunday School classes. Which happened to be held in the sanctuary. They were in the front pew.

The motorcycle was in with their mom’s stuff, and one of the brothers just couldn’t resist pushing the button on top of it.

And into the middle of the Sunday School lesson, the toy belts out, “I FEEL THE NEED FOR SPEED…LET’S RIIIIIDE!” complete with very loud music and the revving sounds of a motor. And it doesn't stop for a long, long, too-embarrassingly-long time.

Which was probably about the time she promptly rose and ushered the boy back to the Little Tots classroom where I was hanging out with Judah waiting until the teen girls arrived to take over for the Service.

Yes, a few months ago someone finally came up with the brilliant idea (read: they’d run out of other options) to ask a couple of the teen girls at church if they would like to work in the nursery during the service, and wonder of wonders they agreed to do so! For the first time in ages, I’ve been able to sit through worship without distractions.

So anyway, later that same morning, while listening intently to the sermon, I saw my friend (the twins mom) walk past and suddenly recalled the story of the toy motorcycle she'd told me just before the sermon began.

Which triggered the thought that my cell phone ringtone was not yet set on vibrate after a busy day out and about on Saturday. Which meant, of course, that I had to tend to that promptly and so reached over to rustle it out of my purse.

This is because my dad someone in my life has a real knack for calling at the most inopportune moments.

In doing so, I glanced at the time and discovered that we were just a couple of minutes from the end of the sermon.

I turned my attention back to the sermon, and became so engrossed that I didn’t realize we’d gone a few minutes over the usual ending time.

That is...until I heard a loud banging on the two-way mirror between the nursery and the sanctuary.

How distracting, I thought, then glanced back, and from my angle could barely make out the silhouetted ouline of one very familiar little head, cocked just so, and the faint, somewhat muffled sound of his gleeful shout behind the glass, “Hey, dere’s my mama and daddy!”

Clearly the boy was proud of himself for spotting us his parents and slapped the glass a few more times before he was bodily removed from the chair he’d somehow managed to push up to the two-way glass.

Yes, because stealing toys from the church nursery, running up and down the aisles during the middle of a sermon and then flipping the bank of light switches for the sanctuary off and on during another service were simply not enough, he had to add yet another incident to his record.
This kid is making a real name for himself in our church, let me tell you.

I'm a bad, bad blogger. It's been over a week since my last posting!

Sorry 'bout that.

It's just that when the weather warms up and the wind dies down in our desert community, an inner switch gets flipped on and I spring into activity...planting seeds, getting garden plots ready, prettying up my entire front yard porch for some curb appeal, starting way too many DIY building and fix-it projects, repurposing thrift store finds, and basically using every spare minute of daylight til I fall into bed exhausted each day.

And I totally love that...but alas, it leaves me little time to blog.

Not that I don't still take pictures of everything as is my usual M.O. (What kind of blogger would I be if I didn't at least do that much, lol?)

In fact, I have several posts in draft that will show what I've been up to, but I'm waiting until everything is complete so I can show the before and afters.

Naturally, doing all of this has involved a few trips to those cavernous home improvement stores.
Because having been renters until just last October, aside from the flower pots I've used at the previous two houses we are pretty much starting from scratch where things like soil amending and supplies for our home-reno projects are concerned.

When I go into places like L*wes and H*me Dep*t, I usually stand there a tad overwhelmed by a store so big that birds make their nests inside in the rafters.

And where calling out to my children who run ahead of me down the aisles sounds a little like this: "Jericho...cho...cho...".

Aside from the obvious basics like where the garden, paint and lumber departments are, there are a lot of odd little idiosyncrasies about these stores that I just don't 'get' even after numerous trips through them (like clotheslines mixed into the same aisle as storage tubs, ironing boards and shelving. Who thought that was a good idea?? They're something you'd find outside, for pity's sake!) I don't 'get' why my husband could spend hours in there.

In the same way he doesn't 'get' the lure of places like JoAnn Fabric and Michaels for me. If I asked him to go find chenille pipe cleaners or fat quarters of fabric in one of those places, there's no telling what he'd come home with. (It was the same story when I was recently asked to find a cloth tool bag for him.)

Anyway, my list the other day included:

*clothesline t-bars
*silver colored corner brackets (for a project I'll be highlighting in an upcoming post)
*those sharp wiggly little things that you hammer into two adjoining pieces of wood to reinforce the corners...
*spray paint in three colors
*dowels
*a well-built garden nozzle to attach to the end of my hose which will allow me to mist delicate seedlings or saturate a fruit tree with the flip of a switch. Not gun shaped or cheap plastic.
*1x2x10's (4)

I guess the thing I dislike about these stores is that I just feel so...lost in them.

While it is one-stop-shopping (always a plus when you've got a toddler or three in carseats and don't relish the buckling and unbuckling them and loading and unloading them to make 10 different stops to get a few items), they've lost the one-on-one, 30-years-worth-of-hardware-knowledge and friendly customer service that their smaller competitors of yesteryear had.

Some friendly old guy behind the counter who you could explain your problem to, and he'd set you up with just what you need and might even explain how to install it in women's clear and concise terms that will help you to make the needed installation or repair on your own.

I really miss that, because after walking 20 miles pushing an unwieldy cart with 10 foot long lumber and a fussy toddler in it, I finally found an employee to help me find some corner brackets, and it ends up being some still-in-high school pretty-young-thang-with-glamour-length-acrylic-nails that didn't even know what a corner bracket was, and wasted about five minutes of my time before saying rather weakly, "I'm pretty sure we're out of them, because, like, this is where they usually are."

Later, I thought I'd try again, and ended up three sections down in the same aisle, where in desperation I asked another customer (an old guy), and he said, "Oh, those are right there" and pointed to where I could find them. Sure enough...there was a ginormous bin full of them.

Ahem.

Anyway, after laboriously finally locating everything and getting my cardio workout for the day, I had everything on my list except the garden nozzle thingie. So I asked an older woman that worked there where to find that, and she said, "Oh, those would be in seasonal." (Once again, I would have thought they would be located out in the nursery, by the plants needing watering, but who am I to organize these bastions of masculinity? **inserts Tim the Toolman Taylor grunt here**?)

Naturally, "Seasonal" was on aisle 3,129 c, so we had to go clear across town the store yet again.

I noticed something that day in L*wes.


There are a LOT of tools out there that are gun-shaped, with triggers.




Not to mention staple guns, industrial hot glue guns, and all the power tools and things that can be attached to an air compressor.

Which explains why I can never find these things at home in the place I last put them, thanks to a couple of very imaginative boys living under my roof that love anything and everything that they can pretend is a gun.




But behold, after a long sojourn through the cavernous depths of that store...I found it.

My precious.



It's heavy (which is supposed to indicate good solid construction, according to my Make it Last book), and it has every feature and then some which I wanted for my garden watering purposes.

Plus, it's flashlight-shaped instead of gun-shaped!

I promptly brought it home, installed it on the end of my favorite hose, and told the boys, "This nozzle is MINE. Do not touch it without asking, and keep it in the shade on the porch so that it won't be destroyed by the summer sun and so that I can find it whenever I need it. Because it's mine. Mine. All MINE!"

My instructions went unheeded. Apparently flashlight-shaped (or maybe it was all the bells and whistles?) are the next best thing to gun-shaped.



*sigh*

I guess I should look at the silver lining in this...now Jericho begs to go water all the plants outside...front yard and back!

Now if we could just work on conserving water in the process...



**Edited to add**

In the writing of this post, I highlighted and was playfully bemoaning the general lack of help that folks tend to get in these large box stores in comparison to the small corner hardware stores...particularly from the younger employees who do not have several years worth of home repairs/DIY projects/woodworking/gardening experience under their belts to make them especially helpful to store customers.

What I failed to think about was how this post might be perceived by my mom...who happens to be a very hardworking master gardener employed in the garden center of one of these box stores. **"Doh!"**

My mom is on her feet for hours every day, lifting heavy bags of soil and other garden-related supplies, not to mention tending to the vast numbers of plants with varying needs that come and go at the store.

My mom is hard-working, really knows her stuff, and is the go-to person in her department when the store manager has a department-related question. She also spends a considerable amount of time answering customer questions out of her vast wealth of master-gardener knowledge, bending over backwards to make sure they get the help they're looking for, all with top-notch customer service and a smile.

In fact, her store was actually awarded recently for having the highest sales nationwide in their garden center, which I have no doubt was in large part due to her hard work there.

Sorry mom! Your store and the customers there are fortunate to have you...I only wish you and your store weren't 1,500 miles away!

So for Mother's Day, Jericho announced, "We thought you would want to go to the fair, mom."

Funny how that decision came about, because first thing they said after I agreed was, "Can we go on some rides?"

Reminds me of a story my dad used to tell about himself at about age 7 figuring out a pretty good racket. "Dad, mom wants to go see ____ movie." Then he'd go in to his mom and say, "Mom, dad wants to go see ____ movie." It worked a few times before they finally caught on that they were being set up, lol.

I'm SO onto them.

"Wookit da cute wittow goats!" Judah squealed as he roughed up the poor little things petted them.

Judah zeroes in on a litter of piglets.

Jericho pointed out, "Hey, look mom, there's a runt! It's Wilbur!"

This little piglet ran for his life decided to get closer to the rest of his littermates when Judah reached his curious little hand in.




Judah mauls pets the young cows. He's not very gentle. Rather bull-in-a-china-closet-ish. We usually intercept him in time, but sometimes he's just a bit too quick for us.




The back story behind this photo is that when we arrived on the scene, the pig in the pen on the right had the blue twine cord in his mouth and was 'sawing' it up and down against the post, which would have sprung the goat from his pen.

Here was the goat's reaction to that plan.

Here was a suspicious character we saw roaming the fairgrounds with an M-16.

I at least managed to make a quick solo trip through the arts buildings before the boys began asking when they could go on some of the rides.

These tortoises went a bit faster than you would expect tortoises to go.

Here, Jericho sits in a tuttle tuttle tree swing.

This was the dragon rollercoaster. Judah started off smiling, but on the very last turn around the track it got a bit herkey-jerkey and he bumped his head. He got off rubbing a very sore head and said, "Dat dragon hurted me!"

Nothing could warm a mother's heart more than to see her eldest child decide of his own accord to get up the steps in the fastest way possible help his little brother since his legs were short and that was a long, long staircase.

Made me want to burst out in song.

Something like, "He ain't heavy...he's my brothaaaaa"

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

"Mama...dat was SO fun!"

I snapped this photo just before Judah tried to climb back up the giant slide.

It was rather confusing to him that at the park he can do that whenever he wants to, but things were different here.

Adding insult to injury, they wouldn't let him go up the steps to go down the slide again without more tickets.

This ride harks back to my own memories of the Puyallup Fair as a kid.

Though it's probably the exact same ride traveling with a different Carnie outfit (and hence rather old), that's okay, because it's retro now. And retro is in.

Judah had fun, but I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I'm old enough now that the carnival rides of my childhood are now considered retro.

Now, you'd think that since it was Mother's Day and all, my son would graciously consent to a decent mother-son photo. But nooooo...all I get as I'm trying to properly aim the camera for this self-portrait were funky faces being made to my left.

How did I know this was happening?

Because THIS is the cheshire cat grin I saw on his face when I glanced over at him after a whole series of goofy shots.

Yes, that's the face that tells me he was up to no good.

So I gave up.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

I'm not sure why I thought that sticking my tongue out would be hilarious, but there it is. Looks like I'm licking Jeff's earlobe.

Here are what Tom turkeys look like when chasing a really cool remote control stunt car that can stop on a dime.



Here is Judah contemplating climbing over to "Pway wif da turkeys". Thankfully we caught him just in time.

Here are what Tom turkeys look like when they are thinking about the females of the species. They, like Peacocks, can really strut their stuff.

Here is the breed more commonly known as "Butterball".

For some reason, we had a hankering for some poutlry, and so we left the fairgrounds and stopped off for dinner and Banana Splits, as is our yearly 'tradition'.

Judah was thrilled. "For me?"

Don't even think about it, mom. This is MINE.



It was a lovely, exhausting and fun-filled day.

This is a 4-generation photo of my mom's side of the family, taken a couple of years ago shortly before my sweet Grandma went to be with the Lord.



I think often about the Faith in Jesus that she modeled not just for me but for her very large extended family and many other grandchildren and great grandchildren and everyone she 'adopted' as her own.

I remember her gentle guidance. Her patience. How she taught me how to sew as a little girl. (Do you know how painstaking it is to teach someone with a very short attention span a young child to sew? I'm telling you, that woman knew patience and persistence, because I eventually learned how).

I remember the generosity that was so much a part of who she was. That she died with only a few boxes of earthly possessions (mostly mementos) because she'd given everything else away.

I loved that she doted on every baby or child she ever met, and that everyone was "lover" or "honey" (spoken with tender endearment) and that everyone who knew her felt like they were special to her. That just about all my mom's, mine and my siblings friends knew and called her either "mom" or "grandma", and we were happy to share her. Proud of the fact that she was so loving and likeable and bighearted to include everyone as her own, and that our friends all adored her as much as we did.

I appreciate it so much now that my grandma was always puttering around in her garden, putting up fruits and veggies and her infamous fruit-leather when all of us kids were over during the summers. We loved spending weeks at a time at her house, all us cousins together, helping to harvest all the plums, pears and apples from her trees, and all manner of veggies from her gardens and berries from her berry patch.

It was a common sight to see grandma in the kitchen slicing up fresh fruits and veggies fresh from her yard or her sisters, and coaxing us to eat all these good-for-us foods, eschewing junk food completely. For her day, she was a health nut, and just wanted to be sure all her kids were getting plenty of what was good for them to nourish young bodies and brains. It developed some good habits in my life early on as well as a love for garden-fresh produce, as well as the desire to do the same our kids.

I still remember what a treat it was to get to sleep with grandma in her big bed in her lavender bedroom during those week long stints during the summer. I loved her shiny satin floral bedspread and the headboard with sliding doors. I loved trying-on her horn-rimmed reading glasses with the little crystals set in the corners which she kept in there.

It was there, tucked cozily into her big bed with her and a cousin or sibling or two that she taught us to pray, and to memorize Psalm 23 and the Lord's Prayer among other Bible passages. Just before bed each night, she'd read to us kids out of her large print Bible. After we learned to read, she'd usually ask one of us to read the Bible to her, which was a special honor.

And sometimes, if I was lucky, I'd wake in the night and slide my hand under her pillow where I would find her false teeth. I'm not sure why, but examining them was irresistable to me in all their waxy-plastic pink and white glory. I think it's because she usually either had them in her mouth or kept them in cup in the bathroom with a fizzy white tablet that helped to keep them clean. (She must have known I had a fascination with her dental products, because after the time she found me in the bathroom with an empty box stuffed with wrappers and a toilet bowl full of fizzing water, well, she began keeping them and her false teeth where I couldn't find them when I came over.)

There are many things in my life that daily remind me of Grandma. Things I can link directly to her having explained or imparted to me. Names of plants or flowers will suddenly come to mind after not having seen them in years, and I remember them because she patiently answered gazillions all my questions as a young child.

She spent most of her life caring for her own family, then an ill husband, and in later years, grandchildren and great grandchildren. She had such a way with babies and could make friends with just about anyone. She was always there to listen and to "ooh" and "ahhh" over every little gift given to her. She adored cute-kid stories, and took special delight in seeing the world through children's eyes.

In the years she lived with our family, she always knew the best ways to pass wet and dreary Western Washington afternoons and somehow managed to sneak in good, contructive activities that we didn't realize until much later were for our betterment.

While her homemade bread and pancakes were second to none, she wasn't particularly known for her cooking, but nobody could beat the warmth of her hospitality. A cup of tea and toast at her table was a feast.

My mom learned her mothering skills from the best.

Like the master gardener that she is, my mom never left her little 'seedlings' to fend for themselves, to be overcome with weeds that might choke our fledgling faith, but carefully tended us, weeding when necessary, and making sure we had plenty of food, water and Sonshine. As a result, we grew up strong and healthy, able to withstand the storms of life that blew our way.

Even in the days when she was slogging it out as a single parent, by God's grace, she managed to impart wisdom and truth into our lives, and to always point us to The One that could meet all our needs. She also kept us in church where we had an additional support system made up of folks who came along side to help her in instilling good values in her children. "He's never failed me yet!" was something I heard her say about the Lord a lot...a phrase I continue to use with my own children.

We went through some rough years together, she and all us kids, but she was always 'available' to mother and nurture and guide. Several discussions of great importance to my teenage self took place early in the morning while sharing the bathroom mirror as we put on our makeup.

She, too, loves and dotes on babies and kids, and gets a charge out of cute-kid stories and loves a good game of Scrabble over a cup of tea. Sometimes, as teens, our friends would bend her ear long into the night pouring out their troubles to her because she'd listen and always gave them wise, motherly advice.

Mom always found creative ways to keep us all clothed on a dime. Our vast joint collection of turtlenecks, sweatshirts and sweaters in almost every color(which she and my sister Jami and I all shared during the 'lean' years) allowed for a mix-and-match wardrobe that was virtually endless in it's combinations. Sheer genius. And though she was by necessity a working mom in later years, when a special outfit was needed for some upcoming special occasion she'd buy bargain fabric and work long into the night transforming it into a fabulous outfit, stitched together with love.

I can still remember numerous nights during my childhood falling asleep to the sound of her beautiful piano playing downstairs. She wrote many songs over the years, working them all out on the piano after we all went to bed because we kept her hopping during the day. She also took us for numerous day-long trips to various lakes during the summertime and thought it a worthy investment to buy yearly family passes to Wild Waves water park when we got older because we all loved the water so much.

I also remember once that she saved the day, when after a long day on her feet at work she drove through busy rush hour traffic and pouring rain to take my friend Denise and I all the way to the Seattle Center for an Amy Grant concert at the last minute, because my friends parents got tied up.

And who could forget all the embarrassing things she purposefully yelled at boys in movie theater parking lots when she heard my friends and I in the backseat all atwitter about which ones we thought were cute. "Hey, my daughter Becky thinks you're cute!" she yelled out to one of those boys, with my mortified self sunk down as low as low could be on the backseat floor of the old family station wagon. (Is it any wonder than when I saw that very high school classmate recently while on our weekend vacation to San Diego I still couldn't garner the courage to go up to talk to him...after 20 years!) Ahhh, good times. Good times.

In the midst of making lots of zany family memories, Mom also taught us all to trust the Lord through hardships. To cling to and follow His guidance instead of striking out on our own. Together, we saw the Lord provide for us in miraculous ways. Groceries showing up in our car when we were down to our last package of Ramen. Even though we'd never said anything to anyone but the Lord about our needs, He answered those prayers very tangibly.

Raising four children on an income of little more than $12,000 dollars a year for a few years there, the majority of that going for housing and utilities, was in itself miraculous. The faith-lessons learned in those years were what got me through college and beyond. And for some odd reason, many of the very same things I heard my mom say to me as a child come out of my own mouth in the midst of this child-rearing thang with my own two boys. ;)

Then there is my mother-in-law.



Grandma Bonnie is a former navy wife who can stretch a dollar farther than anyone I know, having raised 6 children on a single income during their growing-up years. Like my grandma, she, too, spent years caring for an ill husband. Her devotion to his care and comfort was truly honorable.

She, too, provided a warm, nurturing home to my husband (her baby) and his siblings, somehow managing to keep her daughers, their boyfriends and her sons and all their football-playing friends that frequented the house in good food (which they kept coming back for because it was good home-cookin' served with a smile). She supported her kids in their after school activities and was their number one fan, cheering them on in all their endeavors and keeping scrapbooks, clippings and team photos.

She, too, managed to keep her children in nice clothing, and at times, private school, and always made Holidays and birthdays memorable for them though things were usually tight financially and her husband was in and out of the hospital a lot in later years.

She dotes on her grandchildren and great grandchildren still, and loves when they come to visit her, often traveling far and wide to attend school plays and sporting events. Our boys enjoy going over to her house, parking themselves on her sofa to watch cartoons and soaking up all the attention as she waits on them hand and foot.

This is yet another woman who has passed on a legacy of Faith to her children, grandchildren and now great-grandchildren. The values she fostered in her children were one of the things that I first noticed in her son, my husband Jeff. I am thankful to her for upholding these things in their home during very difficult years, through the countless surgical procedures and hospital stays of my father-in-law, as my husband learned an early, rock-solid trust and dependance upon the Lord which is being passed on to our own children as well.

All these remarkable women in my life have several things in common:

They all began their married lives with military men. They all had 5 or more children, their hands very full with small children in the home for many years in a row. All these moms had a significant break of a few years between the older kids before having at least one more child.

They all managed households on shoestring budgets, often times with the spouse away on active duty. They, too, were veterans, these women. Holding down the fort while their men were off defending our freedom. The women behind the men, and they were proud to do so.

These fantastic mothers also obliged their children with pets they didn't really want over the years, but just couldn't turn away a needy cat or dog. Or bird. Or frog. Even the occasional carnival-won goldfish. None were wild about reptiles.

More importantly, however, was that after their relationships with Jesus, family was their priority. Being wives, and stay-at-home moms were, to them, an honorable and worthy calling in life even though all of them had plenty of other avenues their lives could have taken. Their homes were hubs of activity, pulsing with family, doors flung open in hospitality.

Their hearts large and generous, brimming with love. Their faith strong, withstanding difficult storms in life and teaching their children the same. Their wisdom deep, borne of an abiding faith in the Lord and a priority given to studying His Word. Their children never lacked for the love and support of family or any good thing that was within their power to do for them. Sacrifices were made willingly, lovingly. The end results were more than worth it.

I've learned much from these women, and pray that just as my grandma passed the torch to mom mom, and my mom to me... it is my desire that I, too, will do my part to pass the torch into the next generation of our family...holding high that legacy of Faith, all while being that crazy, zany, supportive mom that always strives to point them in the right direction.

And by the Grace of God, I believe we're well on our way.

Even if Jeff has never been in the Military and I am lagging behind on the number of children I've had and am not yet 39. ;)

:: :: :: ::

A recent cute-kid story from Judah

Judah:"Mama, how did I get in yeow tummy?"

Me:"Ummmm... (stammering, and although generally frank with my boys not quite ready to address that topic with his 3.5 year old self) ...God gave you to me."

Judah: "Why?"

Me: "Because He wanted us to have a little Judah-boy to love."

Judah:"Did I touch yeow hawt (heart) in dere?"

Me: My eyes stinging with sudden tears, "Yep. You grew right into it."

Judah: "I wuv you, mama." Followed by a big smile and an affectionate hug. "I gonna mawwy you."

And my heart just melted into a little puddle on the floor.

:: :: :: ::

My Mother's Day festivities were made extra-special by Jericho and Judah presenting me with handmade cards early that morning, and Jeff picking roses for mine and his mother's corsages right off our own rosebushes in the yard.



Have I mentioned how much I *heart* having rose bushes in our yard, and having all those fragrant bouquets (and corsages) just waiting to be picked? It's heavenly. Even better to be presented with bouquets by the man and boys in my home.

Jeff also gave me a book I'd wanted, and made a special lunch for us after church.

Not-Your-Average Chicken Salad Sandwiches (MMmmmm)

• 2-3 cups cooked chicken, shredded
  
• 1 cup chopped celery


• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts


• 1/4 cup dried cranberries


• salt, pepper, deli mustard and mayo to taste. We like ours chunky, as it's like summer sunshine bursting in your mouth. However, you may prefer to give yours a whirl in the food processor for a smoother consistency.

Mix together the above ingredients and stuff a large dollop into whole wheat pita pockets along with some baby spinach leaves or alfalfa sprouts.

We 'invented' these to stick close to our SouthBeach diet guidelines. They are very hearty, and are excellent served with a pickle and watermelon on the side. Makes 5-6 sandwiches

:: :: :: ::

Happy Mother's Day to all you FABULOUS bloggin' mamas!

You know how they always say to never spit into the wind? (Or was that something about a fan?)