thank goodness it hasn't been like this . . . .

It's the creamer-sugar-spoon mobile that really makes it for me.

This about sums it up at our house

except that the middle of our three children seems to be a morning person. So while the rest of us are stumbling around making mono-syllabic noises, she is Oh-So-Happy! that the rest of us are finally up . . . there are mornings that doesn't work out so well.

Fifteen things you need to know about coffee

On the website "Oatmeal"

Also from the people who brought you How long could you survive chained to a bunkbed with a velociraptor:

How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you

Ten words you need to stop misspelling

17 things worth knowing about your cat

How to use an apostrophe

and . . . Dumb jokes that are funny

HT: The Anchoress

Disclaimer: some of the content on this website is in bad taste, even while being pretty funny. Explore at your own discretion.

Fun from the Epic Win blog

I would like each of these in my life.

Check out the Epic Win blog. Fun

turkish coffee

I'd be having one of these mornings if my wonderful husband hadn't already made the coffee for me when I got up. For someone who never drinks it himself, he's learned to brew a pretty mean pot over the years.

They say that towards the end of his life Voltaire didn't bother to grind or brew his coffee, but just ate coffee beans straight up.

But if you're actually interested: How to make Turkish Coffee

the winner of the Sunday morning comic crawl

make mine an Irish cream latte with an extra shot of espresso

I admit to being equal parts horrified and delighted at the idea of there being a Starbucks down the Road-Less-Taken . . . and to not being sure that I like what that says about me . . .

Kevin and Kell on coffee

Mouseover:  "Coffee--bringing the day into focus."

7 quick takes, volume 090130

1.  Thank  you Kate for the picture on the left.  It's made my week.

2.  You can watch my dad on TV!  Episode 2808, Lumberjack Fan Carving.  In my entirely biased and correct opinion, his work is pretty cool.

3.  I'm sorta geeked over the announcements of the 2009 Caldecott and Newbery Award winners.  New books to get for--my kids.  Right.  They're for the kids.

4.  If I had time and energy to kill on post-graduate studies, one of the master's theses that I'd like to write is the argument that much of the best literature these days is being published in the YA category.  I think that one of the reasons that this is so is because there is still pressure to keep literature aimed at 10-13 year olds clear of "adult themes" and "adult content."  In other words, an author can't write voyeuristic, profanity strewn, pulp and have it sell just on that basis.  YA writers actually have to write good stories.  

5.  Barna Study:  1 in 3 "Christians" say Jesus sinned.  Um . . . do they not even understand that that defeats the point?  Theology, people, theology!

6.  English departments all across the U.S. would be better off if they just admitted that modern lit-fic is just another genre, and not morally superior to all the genres out there.

7.  my children are home today on yet another snow day, and I'm completely baffled.  We had no new snow the other night.  It's not warm, exactly, out there, but 10 degrees now with a high of 18 this afternoon and a 30% chance of snow hardly seems to warrant cancelling--and the roads were fine when I was out on them last night.  I especially wish that if there was going to be a cancellation that I could have found out about it when I still had a chance to go back to sleep, and hadn't gotten up, had 2 cups of coffee, fed my daughter breakfast and had her getting ready to go while I called to check on her car pool before I found out about it.

7 Quick Takes Fridays are hosted by Jennifer F. at Conversion Diary

UPDATE:  My kind husband pointed out that my take #6 had the exact same link as #5 . . . that it did not, in fact, pull up the fascinating article by Julian Gough that I intended to reference.  That's now been fixed.

warning to all coffee addicts

um, yep. :)

10 Things that make me happy

Tag! I'm it.

Rules . . . the usual. You know. Follow 'em . . . post 'em . . . tag more people . . . nah. If you haven't seen these on Rob's blog already you can go look at them there.

1. Coffee: Well, what did you expect to be first on my list? This includes it in all forms. Fresh-brewed. Lattes. As a mixed drink. Ice cream. But not left-over-and-oxidized-from-yesterday-and -then-reheated. That's not happiness. That's just desperation.

2. The music turned up really loud on a sunny morning.
3. A good morning with my kids.
4. A couple of hours to write
5. Worshipping together with people who are right there with me
6. My husband. I'd elaborate, but none of you really want to read my getting sappy.
7. Rereading a great book
8. Arches National Park
9. Coyote and road runner
10. Poking a stick in the campfire.

11. Rome
12. comics
13. chocolate
14. prayer
15. cats!

some toddler messes are theologically significant . . . most, NOT

What can make her think that it's a good idea to pour most of a bottle of water into her cereal? Or to then try to climb down her stool with it? Carry it half way around the house? All I ask is that until I finish my first cup of coffee, any messes she make not be ones that have to be dealt with immediately. Shouldn't even two year olds have more sense than this? Oye. Emergency prayer: oh-help-God-help-oh-help

Maybe it's just about humility

My two year old is being nearly insufferable this morning as only a two year old can. As usual, her daddy fed her breakfast with her older sisters, started my coffee, then, after I've stumbled downstairs, he left to take the older two to school and himself to work. Almost as soon as they're out the door, she starts hitting me up for second breakfast. (Yes, we're raising a hobbit--she likes her seven meals a day). "I wan cer-a! I wan raisin ban! I wan pizza!" Loudly. Demanding. Until she lands herself in time out. When she gets up, she's back at it. "I am not giving you Raisin Bran," I say. I'm thinking, I don't want to clean out yet another bowl sodden bran flakes which she's abandoned after picking out all the raisins. "Look. I'm going to have a bagel in a minute. You can share some of my bagel."

So I slice the thing and set it toasting, and immediately the litany turns to "I wan bag-uh! I wan share!" We've drilled all our kids in the forms of good manners, so on auto-pilot I say, "May I have some please?" This is the cue for our kids to repeat what we've said in words and tone, and they get what they want. But the toddler's not having any of it this morning. "I wannit!" I give her The Look. Sullen, "Peez."
"May I have some, please?"
"I wan share!"
"May I"
"may-I"
"have some please?"
"Wannit! I wan share!" Remember, she's already eaten this morning and this is my breakfast we're talking about.
Round and round and round we go, until I hear myself yelling, "If you say, "May I have some please," I will give it to you! But you need ask right!" And I think of this verse.

You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (James 4:2b-3)

And all of a sudden it just all snaps into focus. At two years old, she has her pride. She doesn't want to ask my way. Is this what James means? I've heard intelligent adults try to figure out what's the right way to ask? What magic formula do I need to use to get what I want? Doesn't God say if I ask I can have? I want to get what I want! But maybe what God's looking for is for us to humble ourselves a bit and remember that we don't have as much of a God-given-right to whatever it is that we're demanding as we think we do. But he's still delights to share breakfast with us.

We compromise finally on "May-I-peez?" and I give her the bagel. She nibbles at it some and abandons it, mangled and soggy at the table, to go look at books. But at least her mood is improved. I'm left shaking my head, wondering how many of the things we demand of God are things we don't want that much, that are going to be abandoned, mangled and sodden within minutes or months of our receiving them. How many of those things he delights to give us anyway. Truly, our Heavenly Father is gracious to us.

Deep thoughts with Bucky Katt

Bucky would have fit in just fine in my expository writing classes in college. We had a two week project in one of them during which we were each given a plant and had to daily chronicle our thoughts and feelings on the thing as it died. I really hated that weed by the end of that particular assignment.

The last couple of weeks I have felt too glutted with thoughts and feelings to be able to write about it. I've been reading some incredible thoughts and journeys in the blogosphere the last couple of weeks, and the conversations have been galloping along ahead of me while I'm still wrestling with entry one. The nature of the church. Coffee. Denominationalism. Individuality. Our feminimity and masculinity. Grief. Maps. Characters and writing. More coffee. Sometimes a little reminder not to take our own writing and ideas too seriously is a good thing. And the gentle assurance that God holds us in the palm of his hand and that all of those ideas, words, creative impulses, etc. are one of the ways that we reflect the image of Creator God, and that even in those times when we escape ourselves, we do not escape him.

My coffee cup is my security bunny

Today is one of those days that has me wondering how much we look like the screaming toddler to God's loving father. The coffee is still brewing and we're already into the second or third meltdown of the day. The toddler does not want to finish her banana. Or get cleaned up from it. Or stay in her high chair. Or get down. By sheer force I manage to get the banana slime wiped from her hands and wrestle her out of her high chair. And what does she do? Lift her arms to be picked up and held. She doesn't know what she wants. She doesn't like what Mommy's doing. But it will all be okay if she can just sit in Mommy's lap . . . at least, until it's time to get dressed and everything repeats.

I'm thankful that God holds us. I'm thankful that God doesn't ever say, "Wait--I need a cup of coffee before I can deal with this." It makes me wonder how much my coffee cup resembles my daughter's grubby security bunny in the eyes of God. And there must be days, I'm sure, that God's reactions to my meltdowns is much closer to my reactions to my older daughters--"You're four / seven years old! You don't need to throw a tantrum like this. " But as a parent, I know that my "big girls" are still little children too, and if they get pushed too far, they melt.

That's what I feel like right now. There are days that, as a family, we have to do things that I know are going to push my kids too far. When I have to delay dinner two hours, or keep them up until eleven at night. It gets ugly, but I go into it expecting it, and I try to plan recovery time in afterwards--a quiet day at home, a morning when we don't have to get up for anything. I feel like I've been kept up past my bedtime and fed too late. I know I've been overreacting and just can't help it. I pray that God has built recovery time into our schedule.