As Time Goes By

I've never made a New Year's resolution in my life. I make resolutions all the time throughout the year. It makes no sense to me to wait until a certain day to decide to do something that is apparently so important to you.

You do realize that January 1st will be no different than December 31st. When you wake up on the first of the year, gumdrops aren't growing on trees and unicorns aren't flying around your house.

This year will be no different. I will continue to improve myself, my marriage, my parenting skills and my relationships with God and the people in my life on a daily basis.

Happy new year.

Work It, Work It!

Back in the First Baptist Church days, my mother, as the pastor's wife, used to have to sit in on event planning. My mother (an ENTJ) has the same reaction I do to the word "committee". We want to start chewing our own arms off. The thought of sitting around with a bunch of women discussing the particular shade of pale pink for the napkins makes us want to take a hammer and start bashing at our temples.

So when mother had to sit in on the Mother/Daughter banquet committee, and listen to the ladies hem and haw about what the entertainment should be, she just said "You know what, just leave all the entertainment to me, I'll take care of it all".

And boy, did she ever...Mind you, she had no idea what she was going to do when she made that statement, she just knew she wanted the talking to cease and desist at that very moment before the hammer reached her gray matter.

She decided to do a plastic trash bag fashion show. Yes, I said plastic trash bag fashion show. What, you've never heard of such a thing? Mom was green way before her time. Project Runway had NOTHING on her.



Oh yes, that's Amy...





I got to be the bride at the end of the show.


The best part was my brother Andrew as the fashion show emcee. He worked the french accent and the fashionista lingo. He wanted extreme shoulder pads, so he put maxi pads in his blazer....

The designer herself had to take a final walk down the runway.


That church had never seen anything like it before, and never will again.


(My niece Bethany works in the fashion magazine industry in New York. Now she knows from whence came her talent...)

A Boy's Bed Is His Castle

(Tucking Zach in to bed one night last week)


Me: Zach, can I sleep in your bed with you tonight?


Zach: Ummm, no...


Me: Why not?


Zach: Well, your legs are too big.


Me: No they're not. I'll show you, I can fit. (So I get in)


Zach: Well, I don't really like people with glasses on in my bed.


Me: Oh, I can take them off. (So I take them off)


Zach: Well, if you sleep here you might miss your bed...


Me: No, I'll be fine, I won't miss it.


Zach: .....Well, Mom...you see that sign on the wall?



Zach: It spells Z-A-C-H. That means it's my room, and you can't sleep in here. You're gonna have to leave now.

Yellow-Bellied Sap Suckers

Found this picture of Ava in the hospital, in the phototherapy bag. All three of my kids developed jaundice while in the hospital. Colson almost didn't get to come home with us because of his jaundice. Ava had to spend 48 hours in the glow bag. Zachary's numbers never got as high as the other two. The treatment was always to either put them near the window so they'd get lots of sunlight, or put them in this bag that glowed.

I always said I'd know if someone switched my babies in the hospital. Mine were always over 10 pounds, with eczema and jaundice.

"Hey, this little pink soft skinned baby isn't mine!! Bring back my fat yellow itchy baby!!!!"

Hot Off The Lewis Press

Yes, we used to be one of those families that sent out "what we're doing now" newsletters.

Vinnie and Tony were two foster kids, brothers, who lived with us for awhile.

Mark Early is currently the president of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Ava's Pink Period

So, Ava's been studying portraits in art. Last week we looked at this painting, by Picasso, as an example of a portrait that doesn't look "real". Ava was told to draw a portrait of someone in this style.


And here it is. It is her friend Sarah. When I asked Ava what about this portrait made it not look real, she said that one eye was bigger than the other, and "Sarah doesn't really have those shoes or that outfit". (Personally, I'm a big fan of this look...the capri leggings under the car wash skirt??! Haven't ever seen that combo, maybe Ava's on to something.)

Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth. - Pablo Picasso

Jesus vs. Santa, The Rematch

Last Thursday night Eric picked the kids up at Awana. He walked in to get the big kids, and the director came up and said "Oh, you must be so proud of Cole, he led the closing prayer tonight. Did you hear him?"

Eric said no, he walked in right after closing prayer was finished.

The director said "Yes, Cole got in the middle of the circle and kneeled down and prayed "Dear God, thank you for all the presents that we're all going to be getting soon!"".



Merry Christmas!

Nothing Like A Hot Chick That Listens

How cute is this??! A card that Amy wrote to Dad when she was living and working in Colorado Springs at Glen Eyrie, I think.

3 girls splitting $385 rent. Now you KNOW this was written a long time ago!

Zachary 8:17

Last Thursday I was teaching Zach his verse for Awana that night. He learns them really fast, they're not whole verses, just little shortened blurbs. Last week's was "For God so loved that world that He gave His son".

So he learned it and I went to get into the shower. A few minutes later, he walks into the bathroom...

Zach: MOM!

Me: What?

Zach: I can say my verse!

Me: Okay, say it.

Zach: "Stinky poo-poo diaper baby"....................Is that correct?

Me: Yes.

Zach: Oh great! Thanks, Mom.




Oh, that kid is delicious. I just cannot WAIT to see what he's like as a teenager. The world has no idea what's in store...

Don't Reed This

Here's Andrew, in 5th grade. I think he still has that clarinet. I used to be fascinated by the process of wetting the reed and locking it into place...
Hundreds of the district's elementary and secondary students performed for various communities during the Christmas holidays. Pictured here are musicians from the Penn Wood Elementary School. These boys accompanied the school's choir and made shopping more pleasurable that day at the Granite Run Mall.

TV Be Damned!

Driving home from practice last Monday night, I was listening to the Eagles/Browns game on the radio. I haven't listened to a game on the radio ever, I think, and I have to say that the radio announcers are SO MUCH BETTER at speaking than the TV sportscasters are.

I was reminded of the old radio show Unshackled, produced by Pacific Garden Mission. When I was a young girl, I'd listen to Unshackled every night at 7:30. I didn't even realize they were still broadcasting. Apparently, it's now the longest running radio drama in history. Listening to a current episode, not much has changed, and I love that! Organ music has to accompany Unshackled, nothing else will do.

How cool, you can watch live recordings of Unshackled when you visit PGM.

I'm sure it's cheesy now, but for me at 7-12 years old it was heart wrenching and titillating and raw.

Happy Birthday Hannibal

7 years ago today over 10 pounds of cuteness was pulled out of my abdomen. I believe that while they were pulling Colson out, he somehow grabbed a hold of my heart and yanked a piece of it off and ate it (with a nice chianti). Maybe he wanted a souvenir of his time in my womb, maybe he didn't want to be pulled out and thought holding onto my heart would save him. But whatever the reason, he now walks around this earth with a piece of my heart forever inside of him.

God Is Not A Hermaphrodite

Why do people argue over whether God is a man or a woman?

If you believe that God is in any way, shape or form HUMAN, then you're already way off base.

Don't you know your catechism, folks? God is a SPIRIT, infinite, eternal and unchanging in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.

God is nothing that you can understand or know. You can apply nothing that you know about humans to him. When you argue male or female, you're debasing what God is.

Yes, there are times in Scripture when God, in trying to explain himself to us, used human terms. When he revealed himself to us, he had to do so in a way that we could even minutely grasp. When the Bible uses words like "Father" and "He", those are just words that we can understand to mean someone who protects us, loves us, disciplines us. We get a certain stereotype in our minds when we hear "Father". Think of it as an analogy for what God is to us. Scripture could have said "Mother" and "She", but for some reason God didn't choose to identify himself that way.

But don't get tripped up that those terms mean God is ACTUALLY a male.

Where Is Kazakhstan??

Keeping in the attention hog tradition, here's little Bethany as a finalist in a Geography Bee.

A Long Lost Art Form

So, you may know that my mother was a champion baton twirler in her youth. She was the head majorette of her high school troupe, and ended up in Who's Who. She travelled all over the South with her twirling partner, doing shows and teaching at twirling camps.


But, I bet you didn't know that Amy followed in her footsteps. Amy was also the head majorette in high school.



You may ask, why didn't I then become head majorette of my high school? Because I was homeschooled, ninny!!! That, and I was a complete klutz until the age of 19...I would have knocked those twirlers over like dominoes if I had a baton in my hands.

One Leg At A Time

Eric: "I have no clean jeans, so I guess I'll have to wear these fancy pants..."

Me: "Fancy pants? Those are fancy pants? They're khakis."

Eric: "They're not khakis, they're navy blue."

Me: "Khaki isn't just the name of a color, it's also the name for that style of pant."

Eric: "No, khaki is the name of a color."

Me: "Today, civilian "khakis" come in all ranges of colors and the term refers more to the particular design or cut of the pants/trousers. In this context, "Khakis" have become popular as business casual pants/trousers, and includes other cuts and fabric types (such as chinos)."

Eric: "Are you reading from Wikipedia?"

Me: "Yes"

Eric: "Well, I'll be updating that later today...."

Love And Marriage

So, my niece Brooke was telling me about her pre-marital counseling the other day (I almost typed pre-martial counseling...you know, the therapy you need prior to joining a karate class).

I was thinking about what I would say to someone on the verge of marriage, that no one else seems to say, after my 7.5 years of marriage. So I am going to write a few posts under the heading "Things No One Tells You About Marriage".

The first is this:

In pre-marital counseling, they talk a lot about specifics. How do you feel about x, how do you feel about y. Which is fine, it's a fun exercise. But that's all it is. An exercise.

Pre-marital counseling is great, but you have to remember that things change. You can't assume that the things that you agree on now are going to be things that you agree on in 10 years. There are some things that you just can't plan for or anticipate. You will see the world so much differently 10 years from now, and so will your spouse.

Especially when it comes to children. You can NOT say, before you have a child, how you're going to feel after you have a child. You can speculate, but you cannot say for sure. So once you have a child, you can't hold the other person accountable for opinions they had before about raising children. All bets are off, and you have to start forging a new path.

What you can know before marriage is the temperament of the person you're choosing. There are a few things that will never change, like their natural tendencies. Those natural tendencies can be tempered over the years, but they will never change. So those are the things you have to be okay with.

Now, there may be certain changes that would shake a foundation more than others. For instance it's one thing if in 10 years you have to say to your spouse "Hey! I thought you said 10 years ago that you didn't believe in spanking children??". That would be something that you'd have to work through together, accepting that the opinion of the other had changed. No big deal, opinions morph, it happens. You can't lambast each other for maturing.

On the other hand, if in 10 years you have to say to your spouse "Hey! I thought you said 10 years ago that you weren't into pedophilia!!", that is quite another thing....Some changes may be tougher to deal with than others.

Life is going to turn you upside down and shake you both until, like loose change, all of your preconceived notions fall out of your pockets. If you're okay with the other person's natural tendencies, once you've been righted, you'll probably still like each other.

So get ready...A change gonna come....

You've Got A Friend In Me

Here's a picture from a few years ago, when Cole was going through a "Woody has to come with me, and be safe" stage...

But Fourteen, That's Too Much!!

Another example of my brother Andrew's poetry...a birthday card he wrote to my sister Amy.

Ninjas Never Really Sleep

I've mentioned that my daughter Ava is a ninja, correct?

One of her super ninja powers is her ability to be conscious even in the dead of sleep. In this video, we were driving home after a long day at an outdoor party. The kids had all fallen asleep in the car. Colson and Ava were in the back seat, and Colson's head had fallen towards the center first. Ava's head started to dip towards him, but in her sleep, she didn't want to bump Colson's head with hers. So over and over her head would fall, and she'd jerk it back up. All while she was completely passed out.

This must have gone on for 15 minutes. Eric woke me up so that I could see it. It was the saddest, funniest thing you ever did see.

Pronunciation Pontifications, Part 5

You don't say "all of THE sudden".

You say "all of A sudden".

It's an idiom, no rhyme or reason for giving the phrase all of a sudden a certain meaning, but that's what it's always been.

It's like saying the phrase "by the skin of my teeth" as "by a skin of and teeth". It just isn't how you say it. You sound a fool. And no one wants that.

Things To Do Before I Die

At our cocktail party, my nephew Alex was part of a conversation I was having with Solomon. Solomon is my dance partner's boyfriend, and is in the beauty industry. Afterwards, Alex says:

"Wow, I just had a 10 minute conversation about makeup. I never thought that would happen. I can scratch that off my Bucket list!!"


(To which Solomon replied "Wow! I can finally say I've met someone who's never had a 10 minute conversation about makeup! I never thought THAT would happen!!)

The End Of Disney

We watched Wall-E with the kids on Sunday morning. I haven't been so disgusted since Happy Feet (which had to be written by Al Gore, with the subtext being "HUMANS BAAAAD, ANIMALS GOOOOOD!!!).

Please, keep political propaganda away from children's movies. Disney should be ashamed.

The premise of Wall-E goes like this:

Bad humans are swept away by consumerism and fill the world with trash, to the point that they have to move to outer space. Wall-E machines are working tirelessly to clean up the bad humans' mess here on earth. The humans are living on this big Starship Enterprise type ship in space. They don't walk anymore, they ride around on electric lounge chairs. Every single human is obese. And I mean OBESE. They are ordering supersize drinks from their lounge chairs, playing virtual sports, all from their chairs.

When I first saw all the obese humans riding around, I thought I was going to fall off the couch. Are you kidding me?? Eric was also shocked.

Now, is it true that humans are fat and lazy and ruled by consumerism? Yes! But is that appropriate Disney children's movie fodder? Disney movies are supposed to be about fantasy.

Not to mention that the romance between Wall-E and EVE is SO CREEPY!! At times I had to turn my head away, it made me so uncomfortable.

It's very sad to me, as I grew up enamored by Disney movies. I can't watch a Disney movie without getting warm fuzzies in my soul.

What's next, Disney? A movie about animated monkeys having abortions? Circus animals complaining about the cost of healthcare? Cartoon insects handing over national ID cards to the policing owls?

We've come a long way since Cinderella, baby.......

A Drama Of Shakespearean Proportion

This is a play that the kids put on for me last Christmas.

Ho Ho Ho

Eric: I have a fantastic idea. I think that convicted DUI felons, who are sentenced to community service, should have to come to people's houses at Christmas and put up their outdoor Christmas lights. And not new strings of lights, either. They should be forced to fix the old strings, and get them working.

Duncan Hines, Read This

Maybe Ava takes after Andrew?

Things That Make Me Cry, Part 2

I can NEVER hear "Far From The Home I Love" from Fiddler on the Roof without choking back sobs. Hodel is leaving to go join her fiance in Siberia. She and her father are waiting at the train station, knowing they'll probably never see each other again (I started crying just writing that sentence). She's trying to make him understand why she's going. In the movie, as she's singing, her life starts flashing before Tevye's eyes.



I have a Pavlovian response.

"Helpless now I stand with him, watching older dreams grow dim..."

By the end of the song, when she says, "Papa, God alone knows when we shall see each other again", and he replies "Then we shall leave it in his hands......", I'm a complete mess.

This song is on my iPod in the car, and if I've got mascara on, I always skip over it. I've tried to listen to it without crying. I can't do it. I've cried three times writing this post.

I've always been so attracted to movies/books about Jews or Russians. The melancholy that is inherent in those cultures hits a spot for me. And Fiddler on the Roof, which is about Russian Jews, was always an obvious home run for me.

Although, I will say, it's not just the lyrics that speak to me. I accidentally downloaded another version of this song, a newer version. And I almost threw up listening to it. The singers had no Jew in their voice.

You cannot sing Fiddler on the Roof songs with no Jew in your voice.

Let The Hell-Cat Freeze!!

I was listening to the My Fair Lady soundtrack on my iPod in the car the other day. I was realizing that, even as a child, I was much more moved by Henry Higgins' love song than Freddy's.

Freddy's love for Eliza was so easy, so obvious, free of torture.



Henry's love for Eliza was much more torturous. He doesn't even realize it until the end of the movie, and when he does, it makes him mad. As if he can't even believe such a thing could happen, and doesn't really know what to do about it. (I've read a couple of articles that pegged Henry Higgins as an ENTJ, although I'd say he was a P.)



I always empathized with him, even when I was young. And even then, I thought that "I've grown accustomed to your face" just might be the sweetest thing someone could say.


Ah, the fairytale dreams of my youth............

There Once Was A Fellow McSweeney...

So, I am not a big fan of poetry. I've never found a poem that spoke to me. Poems, to me, are either whiny emotional rants, or rambling analogies for non-important things. I get that they speak to other types, but for me, they hold no value. At least none that I've read so far in my life. Maybe I just haven't happened upon "my kind" of poet.

The k12 curriculum that Agora Cyber Charter School uses, teaches a lot of poetry in the Language Arts course. I think that's fantastic that the kids are learning about poetry, I just have a hard time teaching it.

But I guess either I'm doing an okay job, or Ava just has a natural knack for poetry. Yesterday she had to write a poem about rain. I like hers better than the Robert Louis Stevenson one that we read for "inspiration"...


(It's raining here and there,
Come and jump in puddles.
Splash! Jumping is fun!
We're all wet!)

Brothers And Sisters

Okay, I came upon a GEM!!! This is hands down the best find so far. Why, you ask? Well, Eric Lewis doesn't write letters much. Probably because he wants no physical records of his thoughts, as his spoken words have gotten him in enough trouble in his life....Never leave a paper trail.

Also funny to think of Amy trying out for choir...!!!!!! Ah, the hits keep comin'!



Funny side note, Amy ran into this "Dusty" many many years later, at the old KP Corral. Now I know why she and Eric thought it was so funny, seeing him again.

And here is a picture of Eric's "little deal with Sue"....(that little deal's name is Bonnie!!)

My Long Lost Twin

Whaddaya think.......Better on Rachel Hunter?





Or better on me??!?!?