I must be doing something right...

I've always heard that when you're on the right track and doing it right, that Satan will work his hardest to ruin it for you. Well, I must be doing something right. There's an old saying that my mother always uses: When it rains it pours. Well, it's been pouring at my house lately, and the sun is shining so we all know it ain't the wet, watery kind of pour. No, no. I would kill for the pouring to be rain. Instead it is broken things...lots of broken things. I will explain by giving a run-down of my day yesterday. I need to add a little back ground information so you understand the depth of the pouring...my husband's car is on the fritz. Looks like we'll be purchasing a new vehicle soon....very soon. So I get up yesterday morning and start my normal routine. I check my email to find that I have to take snacks to PWOC....snap, no time to fix anything from scratch so that means I'll have to stop by Einstein Brothers Bagels with all three little ones...not exactly my favorite activity, but no big deal. We can do it. Then I go downstairs and my washing machine has a funny code on the digital display. I have one of those cool front loading jobs that lets you wash every garment in wal-mart all at the same time. A necessity if you have a herd of children like I do. Anyway, funny display, so I restart the washer thinking one of the herd had messed with it. Uh, no. A little while later I checked on it again and it was flashing a different error code and had lights blinking all over it...uh...not good. So I fiddle with it and soon realize that it isn't spinning...at all. It's washing, and even rinsing a little, but it won't go into the spin cycle. Now if you've ever done laundry, you know this is necessary in order for you to be able to DRY your clothes. So my washer is officially not doing so hot. It will cost $130 to get Sears out here to service this. We're convinced that this has something to do with the movers that moved us to the woods. They didn't properly "lock" my washing machine and we're pretty sure it damaged it, but we couldn't prove it because there was no visible damage and the machine still worked....until now. And its too late to file a claim. Okay, snot boogers, the washing machine is busted and I still have to go get bagels. So I ignore the dripping wet wash sitting in my machine. Dress 3/4 of my herd (the other 1/4 had dressed himself and escaped for school knowing I would spontaniously combust at any moment) and herd them out the door so we can get to PWOC on time. Things run pretty smoothly, even the stop for bagels. I get to PWOC and realize that I have left my nursing cover at home. I need to feed Moose. I have no blanket, no cover, nothing. And I'm a modest girl. I was in a room full of women who would have been gracious and supportive had I chosen to "pop it out" but I can't bring myself to do that. Yay me! I have no cover. I manage to borrow one from a friend (bless her heart) and all is well again. I finish feeding Moose and we're enjoying praise and worship. Another friend with big kids picks up Moose to love on him, because who doesn't want to hold a cute chubby baby...at least until he pukes all over you....which he promptly puked all down her shirt. And it wasn't just a little...no no...it was a LOT. Bless her, she laughed, wiped it, and was okay. But Moose wasn't. He spent the ENTIRE day throwing up everything he ate....and I mean EVERYTHING. The reason you ask? He doesn't tolerate barbque sauce, I guess. And no, I'm not feeding my newborn barbque, I fed myself barbque, which apparently I can't eat while breast feeding. Along with Mexican food, Italian food, Chinese food, raw veggies, salad, sweet potatoes (even cooked) or dairy. He's doing a little better today, but man, yesterday was messy and gross. So my day isn't going so hot, but my attitude is hanging in there. I even manage to fix dinner for the kids before I leave for evening Bible study and a meeting at church. I manage to be late leaving the house because I was discussing the washing machine with Mr. Smartypants. I knew I was running late, so I stopped at the shopette (convience store for you non-military types) and went to grab my wallet. No wallet. Seriously. Come on now. The following is for you, Debra: I searched my (very messy) car high and low. It's nowhere. I call Mr. Smartypants, highly irritated that I've done this again, and ask if he can find it. He starts looking at home...no go. It finally dawns on me that I had the stroller out earlier in the day...hmmm. Well, of course, there's my wallet, right where I left it in the worst place possible, under the stroller in the cargo hold. So now, I'm officially gonna be late even if I speed. No big deal, I have small children and everyone is late occassionally. I head into the shopette for a Dr. Pepper. Now all of you know how much I LOVE my Dr. Pepper. Some of you have even threatened to have it pumped into me in IV form. I go in to get a nice big icey one from the soda fountain.......(everyone, all together now) it was OUT. Now, my best friend who is reading this understands the catostrophic disaster this is. After a bad day, a Dr. Pepper is a need, not a want. When they're out of Dr. Pepper over ice it becomes hurricane Katrina level disaster. So I settled for Coke, my heart breaking with every sip, and head off to church, where I arrive 15 minutes late. They hear my story at the end of Bible study and proceed to pray for me...and my washing machine. At the end of the day, I still had my sense of humor. Satan didn't win this one...so I must be doing something right.

Update: The toilet didn't need scrubbing today.

Just to let everyone know, the toilet at PWOC didn't need scrubbing yesterday. But my real toilet still needs scrubbing...I should probably go do that now...

Scrubbing Toilets

I received an email this morning reminding me that I had volunteered myself to help out in the child care area during my Protestant Women of the Chapel (here forward known as PWOC) Tuesday morning Bible study this coming Tuesday. I had totally forgotten, as I had put my name on the list back in June around the time this was going on. I am more than happy to help out because I have the twins in the program (Sean hangs with me right now) and I feel I should give back to the program that gives me so much (peace, quiet, and sanity). When I was younger, back before I had kids, I thought working child care/church nursery was a great thing to do and a wonderful ministry. Then I had kids...the child care/nursery became less of an awesome ministry and more of a neccessity in my eyes. And a much less desirable place to be. Hey, I'm ringmaster of my own circus 24-7, I don't want to run a circus full of other people's kids too. In spite of the fact that the nursery is the least of my favorite volunteer jobs, I understand the neccessity of it and want to bless other moms so they can have some sanity. Because let's all face it...everyone needs a break from their toddlers now and then. Apparently, I am not the only one who feels like child care is next to toilet scrubbing in the line of chores....way at the bottom of the favorites list. Our child care chairwoman has a difficult time keeping enough volunteers to keep child care going some weeks. And let me explain...we have PAID workers, but our budget only allows for a certain number and if our ratio of workers to kids gets too big we have to rely on volunteers to step up and help out. With that said, its usually not neccessary for anyone to help out, but some weeks we get a really big crowd and have to have one or two extra sets of hands. This shouldn't be so difficult, but it has been. A dear friend was in charge of this for part of the year last year and wanted to pull her hair out because she couldn't get any help. I'm struck by the fact that Christ tells us to "serve one another in love" (Galatians 5:13). Just like we scrub toilets so our families can have a healthy, clean home, so must we "scrub toilets" for our sisters in Christ. Do you have a toilet in your life that no one wants to scrub? Maybe you should just step up and scrub it. It will most definitely bless someone else and maybe they will want to give a blessing to someone else next time and step up and scrub that toilet.
All this talk about scrubbing toilets reminds me that I have real toilets of my own that really do need scrubbing....a mother's work in NEVER done. Now where did I put that bowl brush.....

Walking through Darkness

Sometimes bad things happen to good people. It's a fact of life. Two people who have devoted their lives to God and would make the world's best parents are left childless. The high school coach/Sunday school teacher gets a horrible form of cancer that is hard to beat. We know these people. They are friends, relatives, loved ones. We cry out to God and ask "Why, Lord?? Why would you let this happen?" I've often found myself saying that. More times than I care to count. I used to think it was that my faith wasn't strong enough to be able to look at a dark situation and be confident that the best would come from it. I've learned that it isn't the case, that even the most devote followers of Christ often cry those words. And it's okay. He may not answer us right away when we cry out that question, but it's okay to ask. Job cried out and asked why. He was a man of great faith but still wanted to know why God would take everything from him. So asking why isn't a problem. What we can take away from Job is the fact that Job had great faith and knew without doubt that God was still God and there was a reason why. Because of his faith, Job continued to praise God, despite of his lack of understanding why. We should follow Job's example. God has a great reason for everything. Even dragging us what feels like a million miles from where we want to be. Today, I am going to choose to be like Job, praising God even when I don't understand why.
God uses the darkness we walk through for good. Isaiah 61:2 claims there are "treasures of darkness" and He uses them so that we "may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel".
The next time darkness falls in my life, I want to choose to praise Him in spite of the darkness, know that the darkness holds riches that will form me into a better person, and a more faithful child of God.
If we can get through the darkness, God has promised us better things on the other side:

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord.
-Psalm 40:1-3

Classic beach bum (without the beach)

So I've been really bad about posting as of late. Can I help it that this gets in my way???


Life in the Hawthorne house is busy, to say the least. A newborn, potty-training twins, a second-grader getting ready for school to start and a husband who not only works but also goes to school full time keep me SUPER busy (go figure). Not to mention church choir, praise team, teaching Sunday school, the ladies ministry, Tuesday night Bible study and PWOC tuesday morning Bible study as well as the PWOC board (I'm the outreach chairwoman). Oh and of course there's this in order to make a little spending money. I have a list of excuses for not posting as often as I should. But, then again, in the words of my high school's boys' basket ball coach, Chuck Claxton, "excuses are like feet, we all got 'em and they all stink." So I will continue to try to blog, because I like it, because it helps you keep up with us, because it gives me an outlet. You people are like my very public diary (don't worry, I won't be sharing anything that secret with you). I will continue to post and try to do it as often as possible. I'm not sure when the next post will hit, but in the mean time, check out the blogs listed on the right. There are plenty of great blogs to read until I have time to give you some more of my own!