Today's miracle

I made dinner tonight as usual, however the miracle of the day is that no one complained about what I made, and everyone ate everything on their plate. INCLUDING ALL THE VEGETABLES. That includes the 9 year old, 7 year old, 4 year old AND 1 year old. That must qualify as a miracle. :)

A Kind Act

I was in downtown Chicago yesterday and it was a beautiful day. Every time I venture down there I am always amazed by the look of the city...the high-rise buildings, the parks and gardens, museums, Lake Michigan, etc. What an incredible blessing to live by such a remarkable city. And even though there is traffic and smoke and whatnot, there is so much good there. One thing in particular left an impression on me. I was walking down Michigan Avenue and in front of me there was a woman who looked in very bad shape. She was in a wheelchair and was missing teeth and was holding a cup. It is sometimes easy to dismiss these people as they are not uncommon in the city, and I often struggle with what to do when I pass them. Having lived in China where the homeless and lame grab at your clothes, and it's impossible to help every single one of them, I tend to rationalize not helping, which is very wrong of me. But there was in front of me, a kind person who stopped to talk to this woman. She smiled as she gave her a sandwich from Subway and even slipped some extra money into this woman's hand. She said "Good to see you!" as she walked away, which made me think she has befriended this person or at least seen her before. What a great thing! It made me want to show love to all those who are alone or suffering in some way. Heavenly Father truly has put us on this earth to help each other and how peaceful and comforted do we feel when we help and when we receive help. I am thankful for this example of love and kindness!

Sick As A Dog

So this past week, we played host to my brother-in-law, who is 14. When he arrived on Monday, we all ran out for errands - first to Meijer, and then to Costco. I pushed the cart at Meijer, and touched everything in the store. Then in the car on the way to Costco, we were all in a silly mood and my husband was trying to lick his hand and put it on my face (he knows I hate it!!) - so I thought I would do one better and get him first - I licked my hand ---and realized I hadn't used any hand sanitizer. :oP

Monday night, I started feeling sick. I caught a cold - and it was my own fault. A few days went by, it was getting really bad, and I was complaining... more than I should. On the worst day (Thursday) I totally lost my voice. I started my day feeling frustrated that I couldn't talk to my family or tell them in anything but a whipser what I was trying to get across to them.

BUT

As the day went by, I started to notice that when I talked to my son, he would answer me back quietly, or by whispering...
It was such a powerful moment for me, to realize that sometimes when he is yelling, maybe it is because of how I sound to him.

Having this cold, and losing my voice, has been such a blessing. It has taught me to be more gentle, to take the perspective of my child, to be more patient... I know that I can get the message across without having to repeat it several times, or get frustrated.

...I feel people listen harder when you are whispering than when you are yelling.

Diapered blessings

I don't know most of y'all here, so just a little background, my husband lost his job in December we are living in our fourth home since then, we just opened a restaurant and I have four kids.

In order to save costs at the restaurant, I work a few days a week for free. And, something that doesn't really make sense, I pay a babysitter to watch my kids....so actually not really saving any money. But every once in awhile a dear friend will watch my kids. I feel guilty asking others to watch them for free because I am working but at the same time it has been since December that we have brought any money home, minus the two months I worked at the school.

So anyway, my friend offered to watch the kids, well I think I asked this time around but she has been willing to help out before. I dropped the kids off with some lunch, and big thanks, and she hands me a pack of diapers....which I so needed to buy but literally don't have any money to do so, and some laundry soap and dish soap, all things that I have run out of and she didn't know. My eyes welded up in tears as I said thanks, and ran out the door to work.

I truly felt blessed and knew that I was being watched out for in more ways than I had even known.....

Now to find a plumber to unstop the kitchen sink so I can finish washing the dishes....

Problem solved

OK... so quick little background, my husbands car is in need of serious repairs that we aren't going to do, so we are currently a 1 car family. I've been trying to figure out how we are going to shuttle my 9 year old to and from cub scout day camp on the days that Benson needs to work. My parents had said they could help, but they are actually down a car too because my other brothers car broke down and he is borrowing theirs.

SO! During church today, one of the men came up to me and asked if my son was going to camp... yes. "Can my wife pick him up all this week and bring him to camp?"

In my brain I'm wondering why they would want to do that. They would drive past camp to get to our house, then have to backtrack to go to camp.

"Well, yea, if she wants to, but we're out of the way a bit. Not by far, but still."

"I'll let her know and she'll contact you."

OK. That was strange. Or was it. Suddenly I realized that a problem I hadn't even brought to the Lord was being solved right before my eyes. I really didn't know how we were going to work out Benson's work schedule with my parents schedule and my need for a car to get kids where they need to be. A sudden overwhelming feeling of love came over me, and I knew that the Lord is aware of my family and our struggles.

When I talked to this friend, she claimed that her son really wanted to spend some time with my son. :) It will be a total of maybe 5 minutes of car ride they get to spend together. However the blessing of not worrying about the need for a second car for this week... THAT is huge. So here is my public THANK YOU to my friend for being in tune, and to the Lord for knowing my needs even when I don't ask.

Some Good Little Advice

So maybe this is just dumb, but we're recognizing even the little miracles, right? So here goes. A while back we bought a gigantic container of dish soap at Costco, and the day we brought it home it got knocked off onto the floor and the flip top broke off. I wasn't looking forward to using this whole big bottle of dish soap with plastic wrap over it, so that stuff wouldn't fall in it, or it wouldn't get tipped over again and spill all over everything.

A few days later my mother-in-law came to visit and made a suggestion: "Every time you finish off something in the fridge, before you throw the container out, check to see if it's lid fits on the soap." (Simple as that is, it never occurred to me.) So now I think fondly of my mother-in-law every time I look under my kitchen sink and see the dish soap wearing the pickle relish lid (it's even a flip top!) Thanks, Mom!

The Center of a Pretzel

Yesterday was a no good, dirty rotten, awful day. My children were acting up all day, and then my 3 year old locked us in his room, where we were stuck for an hour until a friend could come rescue us. That night we were eating pretzels at Sam's club and my 6 year old pointed to his pretzel and said, "Mom, here, I was saving this for you." It was the center of his pretzel, which he was saving for me because he knows it is my favorite part. My heart melted and suddenly we were having a very special day.