My Life In Comics #1

As some of you may have seen all over Facebook, Bitstrips is all the rage.  I've been seeing them here and there for a while, and lately it seems that everyone has jumped on the bandwagon.  I did not want to be *that* person, the one that annoys everyone with pictures no one understands except those the comic is intended for.  So instead, I thought I'd try posting it here.

Something happened tonight.  Something that happens quite often with my mother-in-law.  We are a family of six, and every single time from time to time, we may accidentally leave something (a jacket, a shoe, a turkey...) at my mother-in-law's house.  And for whatever reason, Cindy is practically obsessed with ensuring that we leave her house with SOMETHING.  Usually, it is something that we haven't seen in years.  Why she doesn't give us our stuff back from newest to oldest I don't know.  I suspect she has some sort of system to ensure that she can annoy me for the rest of my life.

Don't get me wrong - I get that it is OUR stuff, and she doesn't want it to stay forever at her house.  But you have to understand that this happens more often than we actually leave stuff.  Sometimes she sends us home with stuff that isn't even ours!  She has this sick need to ALWAYS send something home with us.  Sometimes I believe that she actually just finds things she doesn't want and tells us it is ours for the pure delight of sending something with, when she can't find anything of ours.  For all I know, she is intentionally TAKING things from the children and hiding them so that the next time we go over there she can load us up.

So, I made this in honor of her obsession, which she acted on yet again tonight, literally running out to the van as we were driving away.  It was as if she realized at the very last minute that she hadn't given us anything, so she had to flag us down.  It was dark and we weren't even in front of her house, and yet there she was running and yelling to give us something.

Prayers With Olivia #3

Prayers With Olivia #2

Abbey: On Dating

Abbey has been asking for over a year if she could start dating.  We have told the kids that until they are 75, there will be no dating.  Just recently, Abbey pleaded with me to let her date, and wanted to know WHY she couldn't.  I explained to her my concerns:

She's too young.
Dating leads to kissing.
Kissing leads to...more kissing...

Best. Birthday. Ever.

Olivia has spent the last year or more enjoying one "Best Day Ever!" after another.  I can't even recall the number of times I have heard her exclaim "Best Day Ever!"  Every time it cracks me up.  She's always making me laugh.

Today she gets the spotlight once more, as I share with you how we celebrated her 8th birthday yesterday.

Prayers With Olivia #1

You can always count on the kids to tell God exactly what they are thinking at any given moment.  We could take lessons in prayer from our children.

Apparently she's okay with cars running into the neighbor kids, as long as they don't do it "a lot."

Poetry Is ALWAYS About Death

I have a long-standing belief that all poetry is about death.  If you were in my college literature class, which you likely weren't since there were only four people in it, you know my adamant belief that all poetry is about death.  Give me a poem and I can show you how it is about death.  Katherine wanted to put this to the test.  The first two poems I Googled contained at least one form of the word "die" in them.

Thinking she would be clever, Katherine decided to write a poem for me, so that I could show her how it is about death.  Now keep in mind that poetry, like art, is open to interpretation.  And so perhaps you may think my interpretation is a stretch to get to the topic of death, but I don't really care.  I hold strongly to my belief.

He Is Beautiful To Me

While Kris and Kaleb are going through Every Young Man's Battle together, I picked out a book called Talking To Your Daughter About Best Friends and Mean Girls to go through with the girls.  One night a week we have been doing one of the ten included devotions together.  Each one has a topic to write about in a journal.  Tonight we were asked to write a letter to Jesus expressing how he was beautiful to us and I thought I would share the letters that we wrote.

They're Not So Little Anymore

It was a year or so ago that I realized, with horror, that I had to stop calling my children the Little Bishops.  The kids likely would have not groaned in embarrassment if I had stopped years ago.  But it's my job to embarrass them, right?

But then this odd thing happened.  I woke up one day to find that they weren't so little anymore.  They had become preteens!  And so I see this and I think "What have I gotten myself into?"

I had grown accustomed to quoting my hilarious kids on Facebook, and it gave me an excuse to avoid this.  While there were no bad memories associated with the blog itself, in my mind it represented a time in my life that I am not proud of.  I needed some distance.  But I MISS this blog.

As life continued around us, and my kids have not stopped being hilarious, I found myself feeling nostalgic as I thought about the temporarily abandoned "Little Bishop Chronicles."  This led me to a frantic redesign and an updated blog title, more appropriately named to describe this crazy life that threatens to pass me by.  I wanted to once more share the funny stories and rant about the things that drive me crazy.

They did what?!?

Lately, I find myself astonished as I read the Old Testament.  I'm seeing it in a completely different light.

The Bible mini-series left me longing to re-read all the stories I grew up with:

Adam and Eve
Daniel and the Lion's Den
David and Goliath
Noah's Ark
Abraham and Issac
The Fiery Furnace

And so many more...

I want to read it to verify what was truth from the actual Bible and what the writers of the mini-series added/took away.  I want to read the stories again, this time from the perspective of the prodigal that has finally come home.

Little Bishops Recap

I'm torn when it comes to this blog.  In general, my writing has been infrequent and inconsistent.  It is partly due to working on a computer all day.  It's partly that I feel exhausted when I get home from work.  I know this might shock you, but scanning papers and typing on a computer all day long is less than glamorous.

It's difficult to keep up with two blogs also.  I have trouble writing consistently on Loving When It Hurts, which is where my passion lies.  And then, at the same time, I have hilarious conversations with the kids, and I think "When was the last time I shared those with you?"

So, while I can't promise that I will write every day, or more than once or twice a month, I still feel like I should keep writing here.  I want a place to share my kids' lives, the crazy things I do, see or hear, and to talk about my book.

What is the status of your book you ask?

The Post-Daneil Fast Post

So what did I learn from my three week purge of all foods delightful and delicous?  From commiting to spend all that time I would normally spend just thinking about food to growing closer to God?

Jeremiah 33:3 says "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

Jeremiah said it better than I could. 

The Daniel Fast was an amazing experience, both physically and spiritually.  It is definitely something that I think I want to incorporate into my life on a regular basis.  Not every month, mind you, but maybe twice a year.  It was great to detox my body of all the processed and unhealthy food I had been consuming in large quantities.

Using Your Story

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Romans 6:8

While watching The Hunger Games for the first time, I was really moved by Katniss volunteering as tribute, when her little sister's name was called.  I can remember sitting in the theater, crying.  I made the connection that I am sure many other have made.  It was a connection that I failed to see when I read the books themselves.

The Hunger Games revolves around a tribute being required, a sacrifice essentially, to remind the people of their past.  Of their history, where District 13 rebelled against the Capitol.  Upon doing so, District 13 was completely destroyed.  Rarely would any child want to be chosen to compete in The Hunger Games.

Already There

I have started 10 different blog posts, some dating back to Christmas; but it's now February 8th, and I'm not even going to get to any of them tonight.  There is something more pressing on my heart right now.  So everything else will have to wait.

Something happened today that took me back to a place of overwhelming fear.  I've written several posts about fear and how our counselor and church was involved in a "D.I.A." (Do It Again) surrounding my fear.  Since that night, God has broken the spirit of fear that had surrounded my life for thirty years!!

Today, however, was a true test in trusting God for me, when fear overwhelmed me.

I was on the phone with Kris this afternoon, when he asked me to hold on.  He had a text from Katherine (who was already home from school).  This text let Kris know that she heard on the bus that the elementary school that Abbey, Livvy, and Kaleb go to was on lock down.

Wait.

What?!?

LOCK DOWN?

Daniel Fast - Halfway There

 After a full week and a half on the Daniel Fast, I have to say that it's been a very enlightening experience.  It is nothing like I expected, physically or spiritually.  I thought that perhaps it might be more difficult to give up the food I love and adhere to an extremely strict "diet" but it really hasn't been.

Do I want a huge piece of chocolate cake?

Actually, no.  For whatever reason, now that the sugar is out of my body, I'm not craving it at all.  I saw a candy cane on my end table this morning and thought about what it would be like to eat it, and my mind was screaming at me, "Why on earth would you just put pure sugar in your body like that?"  The thought disgusted me, and I didn't crave or want anything sweet.

Do I want an 8 oz. steak, a grilled chicken breast, or some shrimp linguine from Red Lobster?

Yeah, I kind of do.  I find that instead of the sugar, it's the meat and carbs I miss the most.  The other night, I told Kris he needed to put the one-pouch fettucine alfredo away so that I couldn't see it.  It was really bothering me to have it out in plain sight, tempting me.

The Dreaded *F* Word

Yes.

Today we're going to talk about the *f* word.

That's right.

You read that correctly.

*Fasting*

I know, I know.  I'm just as shocked as you are.

How much do you know about fasting?

And how much of that is true and how much is just some preconceived notion you've had since you were little?

Here are the things I thought about fasting: