A Big Day for Lawson!

Today was a big day for Lawson! He went to see the dentist for the first time!!! He did such a great job and was so brave! We had been talking all week about everything that would happen--the chair would go up and down, there would be a bright light, the toothbrush would tickle his mouth, he would have to open wide, etc. The dental assistant was so impressed! Then Dr. Randy came to check for cavities and so far Lawson is cavity-free! Yeah!!! :) That makes Mommy very happy!
For being such a big boy Lawson got to pick out of the goodie box and chose a bouncy ball and a purple/yellow toothbrush. Then he asked if he could eat lunch at Little Rosies! So much for the clean teeth, I guess! Hey, it was 11:30 when we were done, so we had to eat lunch so-o-o-mewhere!!! Mommy was secretly happy with Lawson's lunch choice...yum, yum!
I am so proud of my big boy...he's growing up so fast!

Just in case you ever wondered...

(If the title has you expecting a book report on Max Lucado's book, keep surfing...that's not what's here!!!)

Most everyone who knows me knows I have a secret "middle-of-the-night life". As sneaky as this might sound, it's not so, um, glamorous. For the last 2 1/2 years I have been an independent contractor delivering newspapers daily for the Huntsville Times. Just as a rough estimate, without including special days like holidays or rare days I've had subs, I (and sometimes Jon-he did my route for 4 months after Jordan was born!!!) have delivered approximately... dum, dum de dum....

Just over 300,000 PAPERS!!!
Three Hundred Thousand! Whoa!

So....I the other morning I thought I would bring my camera to let you into the paper world and be able to see a little of what it's like. If you want to go on a 'virtual tour' of my night, proceed. Be forewarned...there are many pictures....It takes me two to two and a half hours from leaving my house to getting home. It may take you a minute or two to get through the post, but it shouldn't take you too long to muddle through!!!

The kitchen clock. After 30 minutes of snoozing. Groan! (Remember...this is in the A M!)

Filler up!!! A nice cold drink to get me going. BTW...it's been so cold lately I don't even take my cokes in the house. Leave 'em in the van and they are nice and COLD in the morning!


Oops...I'm not the only one who needs a fill-up! Forgot to stop last night!! My night is about 50 miles, and I have to fill up every third day!!! So...fill up on Tuesday morning then again on Friday!



Okay. Here we are at the storage place. Doesn't look very well-lit in the pics, but it's better in person and the lights are NOT really green!!!



There are 7 carriers who pick up their papers in the shed. In this picture 4 have already come.


Here are mine. I have two routes, remember. This is a Tuesday paper--TINY!!! Almost not even worth printing! The front set of stacks is the Tuesday paper, the back set is my lot of Madison Spirits--the ads that come to your house every Tuesday or Wednesday. I do about 4oo of those a week, I think.

I stack 'em up in my front seat and hang my bags from my sunglass holder in the ceiling. On a Wednesday or Friday, the stack is at least twice this big.

Next I update my route sheet. This tells the carrier which houses get papers which days. I update people on vacation, people who don't pay and new starts. I usually don't even have to look at the sheet unless I have a lot of customers on vacation. For my 2 routes, this document is 8 pages long.

I start wrapping and throwing them in my passenger floorboard. I try to alternate 'storing' one in the floorboard between throwing houses. By the time I'm done with my first route I am done wrapping and only have to throw houses on the second route.

Pioneer Woman, eat your heart out!!! Here's step by step!!! While driving, throwing, drinking, AND listening to talk radio, mind you!!! :)

Trivia time...Have you ever seen reflective dots on mailboxes in your neighborhood??? Chances are they are used by the local paper carrier to make throwing their route easier. Red is Sunday Only. Green in Saturday and Sunday. Yellow is Every Day...We call it Daily/Sunday. There....now you know!














Now it's time to throw the papers. 100...102....104...Oh, wait...I guess you can imagine this part!!! Just imagine 397 more addresses!

I hope you can see this pic...The scariest mailbox ever!!! I think it secretly entered a "Swamp Thing" contest!! This bush thing is taller than my van! It's HUGE!!

Finally...I pull into my driveway...and it's time to thaw out, warm up and try to get a couple more hours sleep until the kids wake up!

ALL IN A DAY'S WORK!!! Thanks for coming along!

A Freezing Fishing Trip!

Since Lawson was a baby, his Papa would tell him "You need to come see me in Oklahoma. When you come see me, we'll go fishing!" This past trip was the first time Lawson was actually big enough to take Papa up on his promise.

Lawson and Maddie both got fishing poles from Papa on Christmas morning. In order to actually go on the fishing trip, they were put through rigorous casting lessons on the back porch, taught by Papa. The lessons were first started in the living room, but Nana and I quickly relocated them!!! :) After two days of practice, we bundled the two prospective fisherboy/girl in as many layers as we could find and sent them out to the pond with the men!!!

They spent some time out at some friends' land letting the kids cast to the hibernating fish!! :) I don't remember all the details, but I'm pretty sure someone caught a stick, and Lawson got his hook stuck under the dock, so Jon had to get on his belly to unstick it!

After fishing, they all headed to Mickey D's to warm up and have some good old processed food! There was silliness and playing--and everyone had a great time!

I just want to take a second to say how very very grateful I am that my children have these wonderful, godly men as influences in their lives! It is so important for kids to see an upright example in church, but also in their daily lives. I feel so blessed that the men in my children's lives are willing to show them that we can have fun times and still be an example of Christ's love to others!

Thank you Jon and Papa!

Christmas in....January???

Dare I go back to where I left off in posting? Goodness! I posted about our trip to OK and the snow, but nothing about Christmas Day or after! WOW! It seems that every day I think, "I'm gonna write a post today..." then I never do! Well, let's see how far I can get before some kids make me do something else!

So...Nana "saved" decorating the tree for the kids to do when we got there, so Lawson and Maddie hung most of the ornaments on the tree. Nana and Mommy helped a little, so that the bottom 3 branches didn't have ALL the ornaments, but it was pretty obvious that the kids ran this show. It was a beautiful tree! :)

Nana has more Xmas decor than anyone I know! The night before Christmas she pulled out Santa and Mrs. Claus and everyone sat down to read the story.

Then Daddy and Lawson put out cookies and milk for Santa. Lawson insisted that two of the cookies were for Santa and one was for him! So, I don't know how Santa knew it, but sure enough there was one cookie left over in the morning and you'd better believe Lawson noticed! He got so excited and started telling everyone "Woook!!! Santa leaved me a cookie!"

I'm sure Santa was glad to have all those cookies, too, because he needed that energy to wrap/leave all these gifts!

The next announcement was "SANTA BWINGED ME A TWAIN!!!" (That is 'Lawson-ese' for Santa brought me a train!) Santa also brought A LOT of other toys too!!! It was so much fun this year to see the kids, especially Lawson, really LOVE Christmas morning!

Lawson and Maddie both got fishing poles from Papa. This is their "casting lesson", conducted by Papa, on the back patio. This was the prelude to the fishing trip Papa has been promising Lawson since forever ago! Brrr...it was FREEZING! I will make a post soon about their fishing day!

Well, I will try to do a couple more posts to bring us up-t0-date in the next couple days. I wouldn't keep your fingers crossed, though! :)

So.....

I decided to get creative today. I have six thousand other things to do, like dishes and laundry and the floors...you get the idea. However, I decided to sit down and figure out how do something I didn't really know how to do.

The green was starting to look like puke to me! I was sick of looking at the plain old blog, and when I started blogging I had intended to talk about some more controversial subjects, hence the old name. However, turns out I'm much to lazy to bother with that. I needed something brighter and 'cheerier'. I wanted to come up with a blog title that I felt was more representative of my life and how I feel about my life. Also, I wanted to include something as sort of an aspiration for myself and my life.

Earlier today I was looking through a book that I've had forever. It's a book written by Mother Teresa and is called The Joy in Loving. One of the pages had a copy of a note written by her own hand, the sentence at the top of my sidebar.

Keep the joy of loving Jesus in your heart and share this joy with all you meet especially your family.

Let us pray.

God bless you,

Mother Teresa

I haven't even read this book, but that statement really struck a chord with me. I want to strive to know and love Jesus better this year, and I want to share that with everyone I meet. Most importantly, though, I want every action toward my family to be blanketed in that joyful love.

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:12

Yuck, Yuck, Yuck!

I know I have lots of catching up to do as far as blogging about what's up with us. I've been pretty busy in the last couple of weeks. I've barely read blogs, let alone commenting or posting. I will try to post something this weekend.

HOWEVER....I heard this (I know it's a video, but I HEARD it) on the radio early this morning. Watch it if you dare. All I have to say is YUCK, YUCK, YUCK!!!!

http://www.snotr.com/video/662