Mish Mash

Gosh, it's been a day!

For starters, I need to complain about the weather! Oh My Goodness! It's cold! We're setting record low "high" temps here in West Michigan and man, are my toes feeling it!

Next up a brief rant on the people I carpool with. Come to find out this week M-W one of the girls that I bring home after school was out of town with her parents. Do you think they bothered to tell me that I wouldn't need to pick her up? Or that I should pick her up Thursday? But, I handled it, because hey, she has 3 young kids and sometimes your brain just doesn't connect all the dots, you think you told somebody something and you didn't. It's an honest mistake. So, I go to get her Friday and her teacher says that dad was a chaperone on the field trip today and she went home with him. WHAT?!! Oh, but wait, it gets better. Turns out my mom hears through the grapevine that this sweet child is staying with her grandparents next week because mom & dad are out of town. Do you think anybody mentioned this to me?!!

It's just those little things that add up during the week and make you want to explode. Princess was home again this weekend, which meant another football game for mommy (did I mention how cold it is here?). So, being the smart mommy that I am - I headed over to Meijer and hit the hunting aisle and picked up toe and hand warmers. And not just for me & Princess, but for all 10 girls...because, hey, that's just the kind of nice mom that I am. While I was there I even found black fleece headbands on sale for 3 bucks so I bought them too. Figured if all the girls had them, the coach would have to let them wear something! While I'm leaving the store I get a call from the coach. She's in major stress mode, trying to get ready for a party Saturday afternoon and she checked the by-laws which say if the coach can't make it a parent can step in so could I please run the game....

Have I mentioned yet that the game was 1/2 north of here and it started at 8:30 which means the cheerleaders needed to show up by 8? Oh, yeah, I was stinkin' thrilled. But, since I was going to be there anyway, I told her I'd be happy to. Don't worry about it, I said, we'll be fine! What was I thinking? It was like every parent there had it in for us. Nobody was on time. Sure, it was out of town so there were some who got a little lost, but some of us managed to give ourselves extra time knowing we were venturing into uncharted territory. I feel a little bad now because I grumbled a little more than I probably should have to a couple of other moms. But, in my defense it was 8 in the morning and it was 35 degrees out! One of the dad's popped off with a comment about how he was going to call the rocket football league because he was tired of our coach. I hope he doesn't, I mean we only have one game left after all, why ruin it for the poor volunteer coaches who (I hope) are just doing the best they can. Even if they are annoying us!

Aside from the cold the game was fun, the girls did great. After the game we had carnival at Princess' school. We hung out there for a couple hours and then came back home for a peaceful afternoon. It was nice to just be able to spend time with her - without anyplace we needed to be and anything we really needed to be doing.

Now, as not to spend all of my posts complaining...

I was thinking this week about something I had never thought about before. I went on a burger run earlier this week and picked up burgers and fries for lunch or dinner or something for me and mom & dad. And I thought, how great is it that with all the tastes of all the foods, our God created the midwest full of cows and tomatoes and potatoes. Because what goes better with a burger than catsup? How is it that lime trees grow down south? When we all know that nothing goes better with seafood then a great big slice of key lime pie for dessert? How amazing is it that our God loves us so much that he has provided these little pleasures for us. Things we take so for granted that we don't usually even think about them. He could have created a world where there was no pleasure in eating. Where there were no onions or mushrooms to put on our burgers. But He didn't. In the myriad of arguments against this world being created as an accident I would have to ask this one "What are the odds that so many plants on this planet are fit to be consumed by it's inhabitants?" If it were all truly an accident my bet would be that we would not have nearly as many wonderful things to eat!

Just a thought :-)