Toilets & Coffee

When I was debating about my blog title, I kept having a conflict between two stories I wanted to share.  One was the other day and my "adventure" in cleaning my children's bathroom and the second was my new addiction.  You see, I'm starting to become a coffee drinker and I made a humongous milestone this evening when I convinced my husband that he should research my new addiction and help me determine if it's something that is worth continuing, or if I should go ahead with the detox...

I still am not certain which story to tell because quite frankly, coffee is so much the norm in people's life that many just don't care, and most probably don't want to be horrified at the visual I will create for them when I describe the new and untested bacteria growing in my children's bathroom...

Maybe I can blog about both right now....cause I surely needed a good cup of joe when I finished the bathroom saga.  The funniest thing really is that I actually think my large following of 7 is so massive that you really care which story I share!!!  So we'll do both and save us both the humiliation of me having to admit I am basically keeping an online diary and you having to admit you wasted 3 minutes of your life reading my online diary...  (our little secret, ok???)

This would be a cool toilet in my house...

So, two days ago I decided to tackle the kids bathroom.  Now, you may not know this about me, but I don't do much housework.  I didn't have 5 children to wait around on them hand and foot you know.  These children are free labor~  ok, before you report me to child protective services, please understand, children need chores and my children are not treated with any disrespect, but they are expected to contribute to the family.  Cleaning their bathroom every week is one of those such chores.  So is putting away their laundry, taking their sheets off their beds and replacing them with clean ones (the 3 year old is exempt from the latter one), helping clean the kitchen after dinner, making their own school lunches and putting away their toys every evening....

But every now and then I feel it's necessary to bleach the bathroom from ceiling to floor to kill all the leftover germs...So I started at the sink where I was immediately met with the shock of some kind of white glob of something that was certainly not toothpaste but I was certainly not going to stick my nose in it to find out what it was.  I was also met with the shock that 3of the 5 toothbrushes were in this disgusting white glob of a mess that pretty much covered sections of the sink and counter top.  I threw up in my mouth.  I literally did.  I gagged.  I somehow managed to clean that up and bleach the counter top. The toothbrushes were tossed in the trash.  (I'm not salvaging them!) But the whole time I'm doing this I'm terribly aware of a stench that quite frankly would make my blog be rated R if I were to express what I thought the smell was.  I had checked the toilet because I have a few nasty children that have a terrible allergy to the flusher on the toilet.  It had been flushed.  But there was shit somewhere in that bathroom. I apologize for the word, but there is absolutely no other word for it.  It aids in your visual, too, doesn't it?  I know.  It made me gag, too.

So I clean the counter.  I scald the sink with hot water and bleach.  I wipe the walls down.  I clean the mirror.  I venture to my favorite item to clean in the bathroom, the toilet.  God help me.  I really should invest in those sexy yellow gloves you see on the Mr. Clean commercials.  I bleach the entire toilet, oh, and I forgot to mention, I also have a few children who have a phobia of hitting the trash can, so I scooped up all the "I'm really going to hurl now" tissue/toilet paper on the floor.  You have GOT to be kidding me.  That's all I kept saying to myself.  It was enough for me to seriously think about renting a hazmat suit, or at least call the bomb squad next time I do this.  The toilet is finally cleaned and bleached.  And let me tell you.  The worst part.  I sprayed the floor with bleach and wiped all around the toilet.  You DO NOT want to know what the paper towel looked like when I finished.  Needless to say, the poop smell had strangely vanished when I headed to the shower.  Fortunately (for me, not for my children's friends) my kids don't bathe much, so the shower was pretty easy.  But I was concerned about the cloth shower curtain that actually comes into contact with with the toilet.  I quickly and without touching my body at all, took down the curtain and ran it down to the washing machine and loaded it in with color safe bleach.  Yes, you can probably guess, I have no skin left on my hands...

The last thing I did was wipe the floor on my hands and knees with bleach.  As I stood to admire my work, I noticed the delicious smell of bleached overpowered any nasty smell that might be forever embedded in the walls.  I also relished the clean bathroom for a grand total of 4 hours.  Because that's when the nasty little creatures and all their phobias of trash cans and flushing toilets came home...

So you can maybe see why I need coffee?  I gotta take something with me to my happy place.  I never liked coffee or even thought about it when we lived in the south.  But since moving up north, and discovering Tim Horton's, I have noticed that people drink a LOT of coffee up here.  I mean, A LOT.  They drink it all day!  I have a friend who can sip on ice coffee from morning to night!  I started developing coffee envy.  I wanted to be sophisticated and drink a cup of joe...

My girlfriend helped me start out easy.  Order mocha lattes.  Oh.My.Heavens.  It's my chocolate fix meeting my coffee fears and saying, "I love you!"  It was the most delicious treat I ever tasted and the coffee wasn't even too much for me to bare. 

After that, I was on a role.  I wouldn't drink it every day, but every other and just one cup.  But my addiction has grown and has also started to hurt my pocket book.  I am now looking to learn to make my own delicious cup of joe.  I do have a coffee maker, our parents made us 16 years ago register for one.  I'm going to have to get my coffee expert friends to tell me if it's worthy. 

I'm very excited about this new adventure in my life... I can't wait to keep you posted on it...



Drink on my friends!!!

Wacky Weather in WNY-and spider frenzy...

I'm afraid I might be dreaming that I'm back home in NWA.  Because it's only March 21st, and the weather we are having is definitely very abnormal for WNY.  I mean, two days in a row it's been either 80 or almost 80.  That's 30-40 degrees ABOVE NORMAL!  Not to mention the fact that we got nearly zilch in the snow department.  I mean, seriously, if you want there to be less snow where you live, than spend a ton of money on cross country snow skis, and have Santa and a few other relatives get your kids some really cool sleds and "voila," no snow.

Ok, no snow is pushing it, but seriously, only 30 inches here?  And it's not like it snowed 5-10 inches at a time like it has the last two winters we've been here, no, it was more like, 2 inches here, 2 inches there... I didn't even have to shovel but maybe once?  Ricky might have used the snow blower once? 

So now it's 80 degrees and last night I pulled the picnic table out of the shed and we had dinner on the patio.  It was simply gorgeous.   Just crystal clear blue skies...

But I'm feeling rather ominous right now.  I don't even know if a person can feel ominous, but I do.  It's a gut feeling.  Something unsettling.  As I swat at a mosquito in my office while I type this...  Lake Erie never froze this year, which I'm pretty sure has either NEVER happened before, or only happened one other time.  We've had ridiculously warm weather the past 2-3 weeks (heck, the entire winter was strangely warm for WNY), so I'm kind of concerned.

I've lived in the center of the earth, I mean, the hottest place on the planet, ok, I'm exaggerating, but Little Rock, Arkansas is pretty darn hot and humid and we were there for some of the warmest summers on record.  It was gross.  Even going to the pool made me sweat and I stayed in our apartment with my dog while we perspired(cause girls don't sweat) with the air conditioning...

Bugs are nasty in places that don't have good, solid winters. 

I'm afraid the bugs are going to be bad this year.  I've already seen some mosquitos, bees, wasps, and my most frightening creature-spiders... blehhhhh.  I have to tell you a secret-I hate spiders and have lived in fear of them for most of my life until we moved up here.  You see, they don't have gigantic spiders up here...  AT ALL.  I mean seriously.  I lived in 4 houses and one apartment.  My house up here?  I have NEVER seen one giant spider YET.  It's been pure bliss.  Let me tell you.  My sister will tell you that neither one of us can handle dealing with spiders...my skin hurts just talking about it.  We have shared many horror stories concerning our "run ins" with spiders.  Like the time in the woods when she heard the spiders legs creaking?  Scarred me for life.  I'll have to post a picture of some of the spiders we have found in and around my many houses.  I promise, the pictures might have come from the Internet, but it's only because it really didn't cross my mind to tell the spider to "hold still while I grab my camera."

wood spider - found in my house

black widow-found under crawl space and outside my house

very bad-brown recluse.  Found in my girlfriends coat closet.  They like dark, damp, cool places like attics, linen closets, coats... blehhhh...

Baby tarantula-yes, my hubby could tell you stories of watching the adult versions crossing the road during mating season.  He was afraid to run over them with the car because they were so large.

OK, this is creepy-I SWEAR this exact spider was on my back porch in NWA.  It's called a Carolina Wolf Spider-but he was in Northwest Arkansas.  I promise.

Wolf spider-yea, not my hand. Found outside my house.











See why I'm glad I moved up north???

The Feast Day of St. Joseph and other random Amy thoughts...

Today is March 19th, the day the Church celebrates Jesus' foster father and husband of our blessed Mother Mary.  St. Joseph is such a beautiful example of a husband, father, and faith filled servant.  I mean, how many people do you know who have dreams like he did?  And follow through after the dreams?  He trusted in the Lord and took care of his family.  He is a great role model and exemplary saint to turn to in these turbulent times we live in.   I started the 9 day novena to him today.  I was probably supposed to start 9 days ago, but since I have pretty much messed up most everything I'm "supposed" to do, I'm hoping he lets this little mishap slide... 

Which brings me to the next topic of discussion of worshiping saints.  So many people, even Catholics, believe we worship saints.  I remember when I was younger (you know, like 12, since I'm only 22 now) having a conversation with a friend who asked me point blank, "you all worship saints, right?"  And in all my whit and wisdom-I had no answer for her.  I felt very silly not knowing, and basically said the obvious- well, I don't think it's worship (duh) but more like we hold them in high esteem??? (oh gravy...)

I felt like an idiot-but instead of trying to "make up" an answer, I should have been very honest with her and myself.  "I am not sure, so and so.  Let me find out for you and get back to you about this.  I'm kind of curious myself."

But, instead, I did what so many of my brothers and sisters in Christ do when explaining Catholicism.  I acted like an expert when I had no clue as to what I was saying. 

We only worship God. The God of the Universe, as Fr. Larry Richards says. God in three persons of course, God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit, but God just the same.  We honor the saints in Heaven, which include our Blessed Mother (which if God is God the son, that would make, the son's mother, Mary, God's mother.  Sorry for all the commas, grammar was never my strong suit). 

We have proof in scripture-here are just a few places to check out:


Rom 15:30
Col 4:3
1 Thess 5:25
Rom 8:35-39
Rev 5:8
Mk 9:4 (Jesus is seen conversing with Elijah & Moses)
Lk 23:43
Rev 6:9-11(martyrs under the altar want earthly vindication)
Tob 12:12

I have about 10 more I could give to you, but you get the basics of what I'm trying to prove.

So there you have it.  As Fr. Larry said on one of his talks, we can still have a relationship with and even become closer to those who have gone before us.  He says he has a better relationship with his dad now that his dad is in Heaven.  I love it.  I talk to my grandma a lot.  I get great comfort knowing she can talk to Jesus about me.
 

God bless you today on the feast day of St. Joseph.  Here below is the link to his Novena if you're interested. 

http://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/novena/joseph.htm

St. Joseph with young Jesus.

Amazing Times...

I am so exhausted I can't see straight. I'm fairly certain this post will either be way full of mispelled words and run-on sentences, or just plain full of gibberish because I keep having to backspace to fix silly mistakes...

WHAT AN AMAZING WEEK I HAD LAST WEEK!!!

OK, Fr. Larry Richards?  He's like a prophet-just amazing.  Preaching the truth about the faith.   There was a packed house every night.  I wish more were there-certainly there are people we all know who haven't a clue what the church teaches and could use some "Fr. Larry moments."  He was truly a blessing for both Ricky and I and even the kids on a few nights to hear. 

My friend Adrienne and I had to sing on Wednesday night and even that went really well.  I wasn't really nervous at all.  That was nice.  Friday night, I took it easy because all day Saturday (yesterday) I was 1200 of my closest Catholic girlfriends for a women's conference that featured TERESA TOMEO!  How exciting!  Mother Olga was also there (she's this little 4'10" nun who came from Iraq and has just an amazing story.)  Leah Dehry-or something like that-was there, too.  She was on that "Next Top Model" show and was a big time model who realized the life she was leading was not Godly and rediscovered her Catholic faith again. 

It was amazing.  Teresa Tomeo told me she was proud of me for speaking up against contraception at the town hall meeting here.  I was flattered by her kind words and she gave me a hug and an autograph.

Then several of us went to the Casting Crowns concert last night.  It was awesome!  I had totally forgotten the fact that Matthew West was performing too.  I just LOVE him and his song, "Save a Place for Me," has such a special place in my heart.

We even waited to meet them and we got our picture taken with Matthew West and he signed our shirts-he was so awesome to talk to-just a firmly convicted in his faith kinda guy.  Very much interested in what we had to say-which was a nice change-most "stars" tend to not really care about you-just signing and moving you along.  He actually stood up with us and talked for a few minutes.  I was awestruck.

We met the Casting Crowns band, too.  Shook all their hands and got their autographs.  Mark Hall (lead singer) said he saw my friend Christie and I (we were on the SECOND ROW!) the whole time and looked to us as his oasis because we were singing and he was curious about our shirts we were wearing.  He was worried about why the other people around us were there-cause they didn't look too excited to be there.... 

I have a few pics of the evening...

Matthew West-cutie patootie!

My dear friends and I pictured with Matthew West!

But I'm exhausted because we got home at midnight, we helped our dear friends move big time furniture today and just got home at 10:00pm.  The kids are pooped out and I'm in need of getting some dishes done-but I might just pass out on the couch.  Ricky is still out there...

Night ya'll.... :)

Amazing...

Oh. My. Heavens.

That's all I can say about Fr. Larry Richards last night.  Tonight we're bringing the kids because it's about family and the Mass and I can't WAIT to hear what he says tonight.  I am thoroughly enjoying his talk so far... I'm certain I won't be disappointed tonight either!

Fr. Larry Richards

Not that anyone actually reads my blog-but tonight begins the week long retreat at my church that I am so completely excited about I can hardly contain myself.  You see-Fr. Larry Richards (the dude in the picture on this story) is coming to speak every night this week!  Oh my gosh, I get giddy when I think about sitting in the same room with this man!! 

And my husband is so lucky, because he has already heard him speak and has gone to confession with him as well!!! He's a lucky dog for sure!

So tonight from 7-9 we'll be sitting in the church being inspired by this great man.  I absolutely LOVED his book, "Be a Man" (I bought it for my hubby-but of course read it first) and LOVE hearing him on the Catholic radio station here.  Occasionally they'll play one of his talks on the radio while I'm out and about and he speaks with such passion and conviction that you can't help but get all excited about being Catholic!  Very inspiring!  I'm sure tonight will be no different.

 I'll have to keep you posted on the talks.

Fr. Larry Richards

  

Opinions are like certain body parts...

My husband is always telling me this... opinions are like *beep*, everyone has one... Well, I just typed my second opinion and I think I'll actually send this one to the paper.  Mostly because I wrote it with a calm, cool, and collected heart, but seriously because I got it under 300 words all by myself...

That is talent.  Because those of you who know me, know I can talk.   And if you can talk, you can write, and if you can write, you can write, and write, and write, and write... you get it...

So I wrote about the pill.  Did you know the pill acts as an abortifacient?  Well, I'm going to try and copy and paste my opinion paper onto here, but it may not work- I'm just really getting into this whole techno-thing, and I probably should take a class because I stink at it for sure-so I can't promise anything, but my opinion paper, explains how the pill works, and the side effects of the pill. 

Most of this I know from speaking to OBGYN's.  And some of this I know from actually BEING on the pill when I was a teenager.  I know, I'm an idiot.  I wish I had NEVER exposed myself to those risks.  And we saw the effect it had because it made me infertile for so very long when we were trying to start our family.  Here's my opinion below!!!  Enjoy!

Let’s be clear about the birth control pill, what our government is touting as a “women’s health benefit.” People seem to think it’s the wonderdrug.  To think, it can clear acne, help painful periods, and promote fertility. Well, there’s a flip side.  Let’s look at what the government conveniently fails to mention about the pill:

The World Health Organization has estrogen/progesterone combinations (i.e. the pill) listed as known carcinogens-cancer causing drugs. The pill is known to increase your chances of breast, cervical and liver cancers.  It can cause depression, weight gain, stroke, blood clots, heart attacks, gall stones, and infertility.  The health warnings listed on the insert goes on and on.  All to have a clear complexion and painless periods?

The pill works in one of three ways.  First, it is designed to prevent ovulation.  But if a woman’s chemical make-up resists that prevention, the second way the pill works is to thicken the cervical mucus that is used to help the sperm migrate its way to the egg in the fallopian tube.  Thicker mucus tends to “kill off” sperm because it’s too thick to move through. Lastly, if the first two options have not worked and the sperm actually fertilizes the egg-- which means it’s now a baby, now it has its own DNA-- the pill works to make the lining of a woman’s uterus unable to hold the baby and therefore now acts as a chemical abortifacient.  This causes the baby to be passed, mistakenly presumed by the mother as a menstrual cycle.

So if people want to continue the banter about this being a “health benefit” for women, let’s put all the cards on the table. Let’s make sure we understand what we’re all fired up for and excited to pass out for free to women.