Tagged by Dorothy

Okay, I couldn't sleep, so I prayed for a few people that I could think of, then thought I heard a child cough, so got up to check, and decided to come and check e-mail and all the blog updates.

Then I discovered that I was "tagged" by my friend Dorothy, who is a Mom of 9 (waiting on number 10): 3 "homemade" as she loves to say, and 6 adopted. I think her "Top 5 Things You Wish People Knew About You" were probably more interesting and funny than any I can think of about me, but I've never done any of those and actually sent them back to anyone (sorry if you were waiting!), so I thought I'd try. Here you go, Dorothy!

1) Like my friend, Dorothy, I give my kids healthy snacks, and then hide with some M&Ms and read for a few minutes in the afternoon. (It's partly because I know I'm not going to bounce off the walls and cry for more when I'm done with my one handful!)

2) I'm a perfectionist. (Hard to believe, huh?) It's hard for me to accept help because I like things done certain ways... meaning in ways that work best (I KNOW it's pathetic! God is working on it!) Like: loading the dishwasher, and folding clothes. Okay, this is a very boring one. AND I'm not sure I really want everyone to know it... but maybe it will cause some to pray for me and my kids!

3) Even though I've been a Christian for a long time (since my teens), I still sometimes lay awake at night fearing death (picture the kid on "What About Bob," "It's GOING to happen; we're GOING to die." I question my salvation, because of how rotten my attitudes are, but I think it's good because it makes me realize how big Jesus' death really was.

4) I guess most people now know I was in the Army when I was young. But did you know my favorite part was my M-16? I loved carrying it and taking it apart and putting it together, but I REALLY loved to go to the target ranges. I got Expert, and even though I didn't do well on the interview for "Soldier of the Quarter" I still got promoted to E-2 at the end of basic training because of it. I got to qualify (got Expert again) with handguns when I was stationed at the Pentagon, and the officers (all 10 or so men that I was a secretary for) who encouraged me to go said, "I'm not messin' with Toney anymore!"

Well, so much for five things. I'll have to think about it as I hopefully drift off to sleep... it's 12:48am, and I pray I won't be a rotten Mom if Paul wakes up too early again tomorrow.

(The other day when he decided to wake up at 6:00 am, I let him cry and he slept for a while longer, then woke up crying again. I was so frustrated that he was awake, and when I opened his door I just glared down at him, and he looked up at me with his tear-stained face and said, "uh oh." It almost made me laugh... just what I needed!)

Stuff

In the past couple of months, I've either sold or given away about 26 things from our house on Craigslist http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites.html (click on your city). Even things like TV/VCR's that the VCR doesn't work on, and old computer games for old computers, and broken cameras (anything electronic goes in about 5 minutes!) and old magazines.

I have to admit that ever since I was in the Army, I have loved an orderly life, especially in relation to "stuff." Of course, now, having four kids (and two women living with us), it's a challenge every day to just do the basics and not get overwhelmed with the piles of things that accumulate: dishes in the sink, craft supplies and drawings on the kitchen counter, and on some walls (mostly just taped on!), clothes on all floors, food on the dining room floor, shoes that won't stay in that nice little box with shelves, and toys -- everywhere!). I'm constantly trying to get rid of things, since most of what we own is "strewn about" our entire house!

But, sometimes I get a wake-up call that reminds me to get rid of even more...

Almost three weeks ago, Weldon's family had an auction to sell things that his Dad had accumulated over the course of the last 20+ years, on a piece of property with 2 workshops and a garage. Now, granted, he had a business, and lots of what they sold was supplies and equipment he used for it. But even the auctioneer told him he should have started getting rid of most of the things a long time ago. Weldon, his parents, his 5 brothers and many sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews spent about 2 months of weekends going to the property and going through the stuff to pull out what could be sold, and filled up a 30-yard dumpster at least three times with what couldn't.

Thankfully, God granted good weather (rained in the morning before, and rained in the evening after, but nothing but overcast skies during) a very good auctioneer company, and caused many people to come and take all the stuff! EVERY thing went (some of it was grouped together with other things to MAKE them go away!) and the property went for a "not-as-bad-as-it-could-have-been" price, considering the real estate market the past few years. One of the really good parts is that, since they sold the property, no one even had to go back to remove the things that were left, when someone bought a group of things to get ONE thing they wanted.

Anyway, it was just a good wake up call for me to see how many hours went into sorting and cleaning and selling. Phyllis & Ardell were very generous to our families, in that they split the income from the auction between the 6 brothers families... so of course I'm very thankful for THAT! But all in all, I just want to keep my "stuff" down to a minimum so I don't have to pick it up 5 times a day, and so someday our kids won't be spending many hours, going through all our things saying, "why did they keep these broken TV's???"

20 Years???

Wow. I know I'm "getting old" because time is flying by faster and faster every year. This morning I woke from some very strange dreams, where my friend Debbie decided to change her name to Jane Normal, and my friend Jessica wanted to make scorpion ice cream... (any counselors out there???)

But in between those two dreams, I somehow figured out that it's been 20 years, to the month (June of '88), since I got out of the Army! THAT is crazy. It does seem like a long time ago... a lifetime ago, in fact, but still, it doesn't seem like it should have been THAT long ago!!! ("Life is a vapor...")

This is a picture of me (Specialist Toney) and my fellow soldier, Carrie (Sherwood) Rick (I lost track of her years ago) when I worked at the Pentagon in a Special Ops office. One of my favorite offices. (Those poor guys couldn't wait to get back into the field!)

Fathers' Day

Well, it was a good Fathers' Day for Weldon... only a few times was it a little overwhelming! But it was probably one of the best he's had! We had a Dutch Baby (German pancake) for breakfast, followed by church, where the kids no longer have Sunday school for the summer, so we had the 3 oldest with us... usually that's a disaster, but after I bribed Sarah with the promise of M&Ms for behaving, she did very well!

Then we picked up food and went to our local park (Long Lake Park) and had a picnic. God gave us some wonderful weather, all day long. Sunny but cool and breezy. Then we came home and set up the hammock so "Daddy" could take a nap... as you can see, it wasn't so relaxing as he'd hoped! He did actually get a nap, eventually, but only after I made all the kids come inside for a while!

I actually took a short video of them all getting "comfortable." It's pretty entertaining! (Especially if you keep in mind that it was supposed to be just Weldon...) I told him it's for us to watch and laugh at some day when the kids are older and gone... well, we'll either laugh or cry!