Something's Awry in CastleMonk

CastleMonk is never void of some kind of mischief. If it isn't the Great Barking Menace or Gigi and Tink the wonder kittens, then you can bet your right eye that LiverPie is SOMEwhere doing SOMEthing.

Our youngest offspring seems to have a penchant for doing the unexpected. She is uncannily sly and can manage to slip from view in a moments notice. She managed to do this the other day in epic proportions. She had already been caught playing in the bathroom sink under the guise of "washing her hands". This excuse could not explain the three soaked washcloths laying in the floor. She was then apprehended while shoveling large, heeping scoops of dogfood into The Great Barking Menace's bowl. Enough, I might add, to have done Y2K proud. We should have known more was coming.

Since The Mad Monk is blessed to work from home we can usually tag team one another on days like this. On this particular day we were caught unawares in a moment of weakness . I was in the family room with Madgirl and Sis. The Mad Monk walks in and chats for a few minutes. I then ask him if the LiverPie is with him in the office. No, he says. Gasp!

DUN DUN DUN (ominous music enters). We both jet from the family room into the kitchen and begin calling the miniest of the miniMonk's. She is nowhere in sight. Then all of a sudden, we hear our bedroom door slowly open. LiverPie comes crawling out of our door on all fours with her head down. We then ask her what she's been doing because inevitably we KNOW she's been doing something. This is what we found:



Apparently, she felt it necessary to explore my make-up bag and apply lipstick and mascara. She really did try for her eyelashes, but since it was unsuccessful she decided to go for the eyebrows! I think she had a nice Groucho Marx effect going here. The Mad Monk and I both agreed that the evil eyebrow thing was fitting. Also, notice the look of sheer guilt on her face. The fingers in the mouth are indicative of this guilt.



Once again, life is quiet for the moment at CastleMonk. LiverPie is free of the evil eyebrow and while discipline was not included in the above offense, she is now aware of the consequences concerning "self-expression" in CastleMonk. LiverPie makes life so interesting and fun that I just couldn't imagine not sharing her antics with everyone. 

Please Pray

Sometimes you just do things because they touch such a raw spot deep inside you. That is exactly why I am posting this. I would ask any of you that read this blog to please take a moment and visit this site. There is a little girl clinging to life and needing to be lifted up to God Almighty. This homeschooling family's grief must be overwhelming right now. Pray for her, pray for them and pray that God's will be done. God Bless all of you.

Rom 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Rom 8:27 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

One of "those" days

Okay, I am a recovering unorganization-aholic. I think it falls under some kind of 10-step program. You know...like one step forward and nine steps back. Today has been one of "those" days. I made lots of progress yesterday and today it seems as if some anti-organization forcefield has surrounded me.

It all started by waking up 30 minutes late. I should have known my doom was sealed at that point, but NOOOOOOO....I still chose to get out of bed. I would love to be a member of this club, but I'm not quite that ambitious at this time in my life. If I'm up between 6:45 and 7:15 I'm feelin' pretty good about things. At any rate, this morning I didn't get up until 7:30. Ugh.

I had eaten breakfast and pressed my clothes (yes, I obsessed with ironing --more about that later). I was washing my face when my hubby comes in and tells me my nephew is already here (I was babysitter today). What??? 20 minutes early??? Foul, I cry. I hadn't vacuumed yet!

I managed to get passed that hurdle and out the door to meet a friend for some fellowship when lo, and behold...The Mad Monk calls and hour into my fellowshipping. I missed a phone meeting at 11:30! A meeting that I -yes I- had set up! As this is a home-based business, thankfully the gal on the other end of this meeting was not upset.

The rest of the day seemed to slide by into oblivion with nothing significant getting done. Part of this is due to the fact that my little rugrat of a nephew (he is SO cute) has learned how to crawl. I haven't had a crawling infant in a while. I am not prepared for a crawling infant. The crawling infant had to be watched like a hawk all afternoon lest he fall prey to mischief!

Lastly, I ditched dinner in an effort to hit Costco with The Mad Monk and the mini-Monks, trying to save me some time later in the week. We ate pizza at Costco. I also brought home a pizza (uncooked) from Costco for the bottomless-pit-I'm-still-hungry-14yo-son. I put it in the oven with the cardboard still under it. I burned the bottom of it. The smoke alarm went off. 5yo dd runs out and yells, ' what's that noise?" to which The Mad Monk replies, "oh honey, that just means mommy is done with dinner." He grins and tells me that I'm now blog fodder.

Alas, I have never been more thankful to see the end of one day than I have been today. I get to start over tomorrow. I will have the crawling rugrat, but I think I have found a solution to that problem. I'm going to try and take a snapshot of my idea and post it tomorrow. Thankfully, I will not be cooking pizza so the fire department can rest as well.

My sweet 5yo came in a little while ago with a pink visor on her head that she found under my bed. "Look what I found under your bed mommy!". She was so excited. She also showed me a little horse of hers that she had discovered under there as well. Then she exclaims, "No wonder you want to clean your room! You have some cool stuff under your bed!" And so it is. Tomorrow I will attempt once again to go clean up all that "cool stuff." I have to admit though...I wouldn't trade my life for anything.

Once? Twice? Third time's a charm!

So The Mad Monk and I go to a homeschool conference in our area last night. It was about a 45 minute drive from where we live and pretty much a straight shot to get there. We were very excited to be there because R.C. Sproul, Jr. was going to be one of the speakers and well as Tim Lambert. Dr. Sproul is one of our favorite teachers and authors and we were hoping to get there a little early to maybe have a chance to talk with him.

The conference began at 7p.m., registration began at 6p.m. and The Mad Monk and I left at 5p.m. All our ducks were in a row. Or so we thought. As we approached the exit we were going to take The Mad Monk asked me to pull out the directions he had just printed on line. We exited, turned left as the directions said and turned left again onto the Service Rd. We were looking for and address of 4636. The directions indicated that we need only go 0.1 miles and we would arrive at our destination. We drove and drove and drove some more, but there was no 4636. We finally pulled into a church off of the service rd to look at the directions again. I asked my dear hubby if this could be the spot and he indicated that it could not because it was a church with a Christian school and this, afterall, was a homeschool conference. Hmmmm... maybe we did something wrong.

So, we continued on the service rd. and finally turned back around heading for the original exit. I then asked my dear hubby what the name of the church was that we were supposed to be meeting at. He didn't know. It wasn't important anyway because we had a physical address. He also indicated it wasn't going to be at the church that was sponsoring the event, but one that would be able to accommodate the crowd. So, we continued past the original exit to the next road up where we saw another church. Ahhhhh! This must be it we thought. Wrong. Once again, we continued up the service rd turning occasionally, thinking maybe we just couldn't see the building. Finally, we came upon the same church we first turned into. We were befuddled because it was in the 4900's and we just couldn't seem to find the 4600's. As we pulled out for the second time I decided to call my sister and have her look up the name of the church online. By this time, of course, I was starting to suffer from car sickness. When we originally pulled off of the exit we were celebrating the fact that it was only 5:45pm. Woo-hoo! Time to spare! It was now 6;15pm and the mood was getting a little somber. I was headachy and getting a little irritated at the situation.

After many minutes of her fiddling with her computer, my sister finally finds the link to the homeschool conference. Guess what? The address was 4936 not 4636. 9...6...9...6...could this fall under dyslexia? I also bet you can't guess which church it was we were supposed to be at? ONLY the one that we had been at two times previous in the last 30 minutes! But we must remember that a name was not important because afterall, we had a physical address!

When my sister revealed this important little numerical tidbit The Mad Monk knew he was going to get it! During the shrieks of laughter that followed I made it very clear that he had once again opened himself up for some good old fashioned blog fodder. He graciously and humbly admitted he was fresh meat. The guffawing continued up the service rd until we once again, turned into the same church for the third time. Third time's the charm, I guess.

By the way, the conference went very well. Sweet hubby went back today for the rest of it by himself. He managed to find it the first time today. Go figure.

Time For Some Routines

In an effort to resume some normalcy and order to our household after the last tumultuous month of my illness, I am *trying* to incorporate some basic routines. This would include limiting my time on the computer and maximizing my time while there. I am starting to write out my blog thoughts during the day and then be able just to type and post them later in an effort to minimize time wasted. Does this make sense? I'm hoping that this doesn't affect my charming personality and flair for humorous fodder. heehee..just kidding.

Anyway, as I've lamented before, organization is not my forte. Time management seems to be a familiar nemesis as well. When these two personality traits come head to head, all manner of chaos unfolds. As has been played out over the last month around here. However, the advantage to being sicker than a dog and flat on one's back for almost a month would be that one becomes very aware of one's weaknesses. It became very apparent that one needed some serious self-evaluation.

I came to the humbling conclusion that HAD I been more organized (in ALL aspects of the term) and HAD I controlled my time better that things MIGHT have gone a little smoother during my duration of illness. I don't mean to say that ALL was lost this last month because it was not. Some very valuable lessons were learned by multiple people involved. However, the situation could have been greatly aleviated had some basic routines been incorporated.

As I've noted before, God is not a God of chaos. He is a God of order and as Christians our lives should be a direct reflection of him. This has been such a glaring failure in my life as of late. I have for years been the punch line for many family jokes concerning some of my disorganization. I have one particular sign in my kitchen that reads: A messy kitchen is a happy kitchen; this kitchen is delirious. Again, we do not live like swine nor anything relating to porkish meats, however, there is some vast room for improvement. Through God's grace, it is my prayer that my failures can be turned into God's victories for His glory alone. While I want to please my husband, my family and myself, my desire should be to please God more. For He alone can change me and turn this mortal flesh into something pleasing to Him. As I look forward to feeling better I also look forward to becoming the woman God would have me to be. I realize that bad habits are hard to break. I realize that years of chaos will not be easy to change. However, as The Mad Monk reminds me ever so often, God's mercies are new EVERY day. That is a promise I will be claiming on a regular basis. :)