Easy Craft time! (You can thank me later)

Need to make a sculptural, Asian statement with your dishes? Easy Peasy!

Place some chicken spaghetti in a styrofoam bowl, place wax paper carefully over the top, microwave for two minutes or longer.

Voila!

Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?

People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.

David Livingstone

Can you guess??--a winner!

Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding!!! We have a winner!!!

In a completely unrigged (though sort of rigged because we're all "twins separated at birth" and stuff) comment, Ashley of The Chaos Diaries is the winner!! My guilty pleasure is actually planning weddings and looking at glossy wedding magazines.

The runner-up winner is Trish, who suggested I had started making wedding favors. Too close not to count, so if you'll choose a heart dish here, I'll send you one, too!

For all those who suggested crafty things, let me state for the record that I am guilt-deficient when it comes to crafting. I love creating things (when I have time) and wouldn't feel particularly guilty. Wedding planning, though? C'mon! I won't need my mad skillz for years. If ever...because I don't actually know if I have mad skillz.

So...I know Ashley's address but not Trish's address. If this is my facebook/FIAR friend Trish, just shoot me a message there. If not, shoot me an email: spicerfamily at att dot net.

Thanks for playing, bloggy friends! I only wish that it could have gone on longer. I love the guesses!!

I have developed a new interest of late. A guilty pleasure, of sorts. Nothing I have to hide from the kids so no worries there...just an interest that has nothing to do, really, with my current stage in life. In a few years it might come in handy...or maybe in a LOT of years...but for now, it's just a fun escape.

If you can guess (and more than one guess is FINE) what in the world my new interest is, the 3.5 inch, lacy, heart-shaped tray is yours! Well, assuming that the etsy shop where I found it still has it by the time someone figures it out! The artist has many heart-shaped trays, so if pink or pale green or mint green is up your alley, we could do that. All it takes is the right guess! If I get ZERO responses I might be persuaded to add some more hints. Or not, depending on if I also have ZERO interest in my silly game.

My family members are excluded because I know I've told at least three of you about my goofiness. And if Charlene suddenly shows up with the correct answer, Mom, I'll know you spilled the beans. Not that Charlene isn't smart enough on her own, but I know how the two of you work. :-)

So, what has Silly Jilly been doing?

True, that

Never explain yourself. Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it. ~Belgicia Howell

Someone's been using my camera!

Song's taking pictures of pretty clay creations!

It's a shame he's not any cuter, isn't it?

It's a shame she's not more of a tomboy? On her face is the scratch that allegedly started the fainting episodes.

Not sure if that's supposed to be a Heisman pose or a baseball pose.

Just never know what cute stuff I might find when the camera is downloaded...

Some blogs I follow...

Here is a new blog that I am compulsively following: Saving Lisette.

The beautiful Lisette whose pictures I have shared a number of times has a very devoted advocate writing the blog and wishing, like I do, that she would find her way home to a forever family soon!

I have also recently started following a blog that I've seen mentioned among the adoption community for years: A Place Called Simplicity.

I'm very late to this party but I love her blog and her family's faith in living out a different lifestyle of simplicity rather than the conspicuous consumption to which so many of us fall prey. They have been tested and tried but have persevered and even triumphed over some serious adversity.

She has a particular blogging tradition called Memorial Box Monday that I am planning to begin for our family. The idea is that the Lord works in our lives, but if we don't consciously remind ourselves of His goodness and provision we, much like the ancient Israelites, will forget and go back to complaining that He has forgotten us. Like the Israelites were commanded to erect stone monuments we now place items in a special box set aside to remind us of the specific times that God showed up in a miraculous way. I can say with assurance that I have a multitude of Mondays to fill!

On a (usually) less serious note, I must make special mention of my friend Ashley's blog: The Chaos Diaries.

Ashley is in the process of adopting little Miss J whose picture now graces my sidebar. The Chaos Diaries blog, however, chronicles the sometimes crazy but always funny life of the Mo family. I think you will get a kick out of Ashley's inimitable writing style. It's also a great way to whet your appetite for the day her book is published. Granted, she'll need to actually finish it, right Ash?

Happy reading!

Bits and Pieces

We've had a few days of painting around the house lately, coinciding with the purchase of some nice watercolor paints! Here are some happy results from Dean and Emma. I thought Emma made a friendly looking house, don't you? All I could discern of Dean's drawing was that the X is actually an airplane. Love the colors, though!

The silly kids had to hold their paintings upside down, too.
This is Missy (not her real name). She has taken up residence on our back porch. At first it was an occasional visit but now it's more permanent. I have called the pound, the SPCA, looked in the paper and craigslist and haven't found her owners. She seems to be very well-trained and likely was a house dog because she opens our doors, lets herself in and comes in and relaxes like she owns the place. Wish she had tags because I think someone must be missing her.
The next pics are my attempt at capturing beautiful, full, double rainbows. I haven't seen very many complete rainbows so it was really fun to have two. I also found it interesting that the order of colors was a mirror image for the two rainbows. Thanks to Song for noticing that detail!

We also thought it was interesting to see that the sky was so much lighter inside the rainbow than outside. Anyone know why that would be the case? The rainbows were visible from Waco (about an hour south of us) to North Dallas (about 45 minutes north of us). I guess a whole bunch of people needed a reminder of God's promises.

Another truly remarkable sight from the Spicer home. I knew it was going to be special when I heard Song urgently yell, "Mom, QUICK, get the camera!"

Yeah, so manners are a work in progress around here. I'm thinking of changing my facebook avatar to that picture. Wonder if anyone would notice?

Rachel at Brown-Eyed Blessings has tagged me with this meme. I like Rachel, so I'm going to respond. ;-)

Directions: Fill in your answers - only one word for each (OK, so I'm not totally following the rules on that). Then tag some friends and you're done. :) I'm no good at tagging. If you'd like to play, feel free to leave me a comment and let me know!

Hair – getting cut tomorrow

Your Mother – giving

Your Father – handsome

Fav Food – Mexican

Dream Last Night – Dreams?

Fav Drink – Diet Coke

What room are you in? – Game Room

Hobby – Quilting

Fear – losing a child

Where were you last night? – Vera's and Emma's first softball game of the season

Something that you aren’t – depressed

Muffins – blueberry

Wish List Item – iPad

Where you grew up – Fort Worth suburbs

What you are wearing – t-shirt & skort

Your Pet – Hollie

Friends – more than my husband on facebook (heh heh heh--click on my facebook link in the sidebar and join me!)

Something you’re not wearing – watch

Fav Store – The Dove's Nest

Fav Color – celadon

Last time you laughed – a few minutes ago

Your Best Friend – John

Best Place you go over and over – Target

Person who you email regularly – John

Fav Place to Eat – El Rancho Grande or The Green Papaya

A Wonderful Newlywed Blog

The blog isn't what you'd expect, with lots of sweet stories about the amazing things one of them did for the other, but rather a sweet story about an amazing thing they did to learn about others, and out of that experience to help others. I've been reading the blog of this young woman's mom because she adopted a beautiful little girl from China and I love how she writes about her little girl. Clearly, the mom's heart for giving has been lovingly transmitted to her oldest daughter in a beautiful way.

In a nutshell, these newlyweds, Taylor and Frankie, have spent a couple of different weeks living off of the food paks a local organization gives to people in need in San Antonio (where one out of every four children is hungry). They found out what constituted a whole pak, then bought just that food and ate only that food. Even when it got monotonous. Even when they could look out their window at work and see some amazing San Antonio Mexican food at the restaurant next door. Even though they could afford to eat differently, they chose to stay within their food pak. After they were done, they had saved enough money to buy and donate 10 food paks for the organization that gives them out.

It doesn't take long to read it, but I think it will bless you and give you some true food for thought. I know it did for me!

I said I loved John's landscaping....

Because it's lovely!

Notice how nicely the periwinkles have filled in their bed! In fact, these pictures are a bit dated because the flowers are huge now.


I love my potato vines! So easy and pretty and fulfilling to grow. Kinda like kids (except for the easy part).

As I was watering the lovely vines, imagine my surprise to see this form out of the corner of my eye! Hanging from the live oak we have a lovely wire basket that I neglected to fill this year. Apparently the dirt was being held in place by the plastic mesh. The snake crawled through the mesh and got stuck! I just thought it was sleeping for the first few hours of the day but finally realized it was not able to move out of the basket. The snake wouldn't let John cut it free so we are now -1 in the local snake population. We are assuming it is a rat snake. Anyone know for sure?

Texas clouds

I took these pictures of a cloud formation coming over our home at the end of July. I had never seen one look quite like that, so smooth and defined on the leading edge.

This video is just to give a better perspective of the size of the clouds. We all just stood outside and marvelled (or is it marveled? neither look wrong to me!).

I know who some of my readers are...

but would anyone like to fess up to having an IP address of usdoj.gov in Bethesda, MD, or ucsf.edu in San Fran, CA? I look at my site meter occasionally to see where in the world people are viewing my family and I've seen those IP addresses often enough to wonder who it is...are you from FIAR, RR, or TSC?

More randomosity

Vera, above, is doing what John, below, should have been doing to avoid a picture of himself randomly appearing on my blog.
Once again, I believe the majority of these pics were taken by Song, who clearly studied at the Nana photography school, a school which places a major emphasis on the walls rather than the 'alleged' subject. If you had ever looked through a pile of John's childhood pictures you would know what I mean.

Vera is a mess

I think Song was taking pictures or something, because I would never take a picture with all that junk strewn about. I'm much too prideful for that! Ha! Even though it is my side of the closet, I am blaming Vera and maybe Ella for the mess of stuff. I feel much better.

Here's my 5th attempt at hitting a good picture. The 1st attempt was a picture of Ella in Colombia, the 2nd was the last blog post, the 3rd and 4th were of Ella in the bathtub, and I thought we'd had enough nudity for the day.

So, here is a village Luke created with his Legos. His creativity in these matters always astounds me. This is the same boy whose clothing mantra can be summarized thusly: the plainer, the better.

Off for try #6.

My computer is so messed up...

...and my pictures are messed up, too. Instead of being able to see the pictures I want to upload to Blogger, I am seeing the number assigned to the picture. I decided to just pick one and blog about it. Ya know, get back in the game, all that jazz.

Yeah. So here is a picture of my nekkid 4 year old sitting on Bruiser's dog bed (makes me want to bathe her right now!). Please note the painted portrait of Bruiser on the wall. Bruiser is not our dog, although he occasionally comes to visit; he is my parent's dog; before that he was my grandmother's dog; before that he was the dog of my sister's friend. He is, shall we say, a bit neurotic but I can't say as I blame him when every couple of weeks or so my 8 kids descend upon his kingdom (because only a king would have his portrait over his bed).

Yep, I'm back in the game!

Anagrams

You know you have a lot of children when you can play anagrams with their first initials and come up with words! Here are the letters in age order:

ALSVAEED

Here are my results:

Saved Ale

Leave Sad

Leaves Ad

But my favorite, which I think is a good name for any band our musically disadvantaged family would ever have, is this:

Lead Vase

Sweet are the hours, nay minutes, of wasted mental energy I've poured into this endeavour.

A real lead vase, so you don't waste your own minutes trying to imagine one. ;-)

Who is 'ME'?

I have two sweet comments from a blogger named 'ME' but no signature to know who you are! Your blogs are set to private, and your profile is now set to private, but after viewing your profile yesterday and seeing the blogs you read I'm guessing you are another FIAR mom. If so, please either send me a pm at FIAR or let me know who you are here. I can't stand the suspense!! Hurry!!!

The Spicer Family--a video by Luke

Clearly, Luke needs more schoolwork to occupy his time. Actually, we all got a kick out of it.

You know it's bad when you must take a picture

...to capture the only moment in the last 6 years that your laundry room counter has been cleared and cleaned completely!  Earlier today, the shelves were groaning under the weight of half-made quilts, my iron and several bottles of sizing, a sewing book, my sewing machine, pieces of an unmade quilt, several gallon- and pint-sized paint cans, paint brushes, two brass water hose connectors, a basket filled with drapery sashes for the game room, a pile of poor quality kids' books, an immensely dusty red velvet hat to match a Christmas dress, a two gallon drink dispenser, a lost pair of Vera's glasses from two years ago, and the basket of ironing.  All that now remains is the sewing machine and the ironing basket, although the basket is hidden behind the washer in this picture.  

Alex told me that I should have opened the cabinet doors to show how well I had cleaned those, too.  The interiors, not the doors!  I actually did clean some of the doors that had been caked in sizing because I always iron in the same spot.  

By weight and number the big winner in 'things that were thrown out' was half-used candles.  I don't know what I thought I was going to do with all those candles that I had totally forgotten were there.  

Note to family:  please do not consider this a golden opportunity to buy me more candles.

Note to self:  please do not consider this a golden opportunity to buy more trash to store in those shelves.  

Query for others:  What can I get/do to spruce this place up?  It's booooooooooring and beige.  Luke and Alex suggested I paint the walls bright orange.  

Note to self:  Never let Alex and Luke decorate their own room.  

Note to Nana and Grandpa Al:  Thanks for letting the girls stay with you this weekend so I could accomplish this task, not to mention letting me divest myself of nearly 20 trash bags full of, well, trash that was once a treasure.  Theoretically.