Behind the Scenes @ the Pastor's House

We were all out in the van and wondering where Zander was. He finished getting ready on the way to base.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

I think I'm learning how to take digital photos without a preview screen or a viewfinder. ::snort:: It does take many more tries to get a usable photo. LOL

This will be an infamous family photo...it was while I took this photo that I began to hear the ruckus described below. ::snort::

We decided to end our day at a local school

Beatrix the Wonder Dog


Look at that static!

We really had a fantastic day. I'm glad we went to the lake and then the school.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

Park Perplexities....

Today we went to the park.

I got royally cussed out by a fellow mother. Their group had obviously spent the beautiful day at the lake drinking. They were not watching their children.

Their children were very mean and rude to Stacia.

I asked them to please let her play. They kept it up. They would yell at Stacia, push her etc whenever she tried to enter the play area. I got up to play with them. I said to them - and this is REALLY what I said, "The play ground is for everyone to play. Don't be rude, let's play nicely. What's your name...." and went on to introduce them to each other. I then played on the slides etc with all the kids for about 10 minutes. They were having fun!

The older kids decided they wanted to go back to mom....the younger one wanted to keep playing as she was having fun. They went back and evidently told Mom I called her precious "rude".

She read me the riot act while my boys and another gentlemen at the park obviously were readying for a fight. I stayed calm and relaxed. I kept my stance non- threatening. I told her that, "Yes, I did say let's play nice and not be rude". She said I was out of line. I told her that if my daughter is playing and I'm not around I wouldn't care if someone had said that. She said we are not the same. She insisted the girl was too young for another adult to talk to her about her behavior (thought those are not the words that she used). I would think if she's too young she should have been supervised. Nevertheless, I told her o.k., if there were more problems I will come get you. She was FAR from the playground and until she came screaming at me I had no clue she was the children's mother. LOL I turned my back as she was leaving the area. She went ballistic...cussing me out...shaking her fists and carrying on......

As we left, we saw the men in the party returning with 4 more cases of beer. If there had been base personnel in the office I would have turned them in as you are not supposed to have "public displays of drunkenness" on base property....This is a lake/park owned by the base but they let the city use it.

Honestly, this is something that has perplexed me at home school park days, chapel events, and parks in general. If you are NOT supervising your child and you are visiting with other mommies....isn't it o.k. for the adult who IS supervising to address your child if need be? I'm not mean. I played with the children for 10 minutes before the older ones decided to go tell Mom how mean I was. I don't get mad at adults who gently address my children.

I thought maybe it was an age thing. She was a 20 something mom and I was 40 something mom....I thought maybe I've parented long enough to realize that if someone tells me a child has misbehaved, he/she most likely has. ::snort:: I mean I LISTEN to my child's point of view....but if my older kids come and tell me my child is behaving badly and has been corrected by an adult, and you can TELL if they have misbehaved by their demeanor, I make them go apologize to the adult. I've done this.

Mike thinks it's personality...he remembers a mom of one of his friends who was like this in the 60's....He says he can think of older moms who would react the same way.....and I've seen all cultures react this way so I don't think it was totally cultural. I suppose it is personality and maturity....I suspect I should simply look for parks without kids. ::snort::

We went to Lamar and played nicely with the others there.

I don't know....

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

Bag Lady

I need a big purse...because I have a notebook/calendar/wallet...and a book....phone...camera...various forms and notebooks... I bought a slouch bag - and it worked. BUT things were always lost in there, and when I plop it down things were ALWAYS falling out.

My favorite purse was a small backpack leather thing...but then again things were always falling out of it.....A week ago.....I remembered the joy of diaper bags.....and so.... I tried it out.


This worked...and if I wanted to pull out the wallet and leave the backpack it was "ok". I could also set it by the machines at the gym and have my book and glasses handy without a purse spilling personals all over the floor. I wasn't real fond of the PWOC logo - not sure why. We don't have fish on our cars either.....it felt sort of "something".... but I wanted to be sure that I would like a backpack before I looked for one. I also discovered this was PLENTY big - a bit too big for everyday.

Today I got one for "Sunday" - you know - the Pastor's Wife look. What do you think?

You can't see but it's about 1/2 the size of the black one. It has more pockets so that everything is organized...and I have my eye on a full-size backpack that will fit my laptop too. ::snort::

What does it say about me that there are such BIG things going on in my life and I'm thrilled with a new backpack? ::snort::

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

Wrapping Up the Week

Friday is produce day. I have unearthed the sign to look for for fresh fruit and vegetable markets in Japan....so I will continue to have fresh produce. In fact there are APPLE orchards in the Aomori Prefecture.

We went to the library...again...3x this week. I think, subconsciously, I'm soaking up as much library time as I can before we leave. They have a new self-checkout system. Cool beans. When I worked at a library, one of my main jobs was to upgrade their collection from the card catalog to computer....I laughed to see how far library systems have come in 14 years. The librarian laughed. It's fun to notice what various regulars check out when you work at a library. She said, "I always like to see what homeschoolers check out." We had a STACK of children and adult books on Japan, a couple on Pakistan, 2 videos on Japan and about 4 picture books on Passover. ::snort:: The favorites are *The Three Samurai Cats* and *Matzah Man*.

Jamin made dinner for all of us last night. What a treat. It's been a long time since he has felt caught up enough to make pizza. Here he's making our famous sauce. ::snort::

We watched Captain Courageous from Netflix.

This morning I found a wonderful website...lots of help both on the military aspect of things and living in Japan.

I went to Walmart 2x today. Grrrr....

Mike is sick and in bed.

Debbie, our PWOC VP, had planned a lunch for us at Bonsai Gardens. That was today. I found it ironic that I'm now going to be living in Japan. The food was good.....we snapped photos with my poor broken camera. It really is a talent to take photos without a preview screen.

I raced home to get Arielle to Emma's Birthday Party - only 30 min late. Emma's guest brought enough "presents" for Emma to fill a couple of Action Packs for Pakistan. Deja had gotten the "Pray for Pakistan" wrist bands for each girl.....I think I may go ahead and order 10 of them from Voice of the Martyrs. I can't figure out which person doesn't get one.

We went to Sam's Club.

We had dinner.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

Pray for Pakistan

We chose Pakistani Action Packs as our family service project for this Passover/Lent season. The kids have been collecting money. I planned to do the "Blessing Box" concept, but I can't find the list on the Internet. I found it this a.m. and lost it when my computer shut down. This list has daily little things like, "give .01 for each pair of socks you own" etc......but it seems that we're collecting without "the list". I may come up with my own. LOL

We finally made a box today to collect our donations.


The kids loved transferring the collected money to the box.


These came today too. We still haven't received the action packs.....and I think I should have bought some of these...these were free and I think the boys want some too.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

Zanderism

Zander has spent three days singing, "Japan, Japan, Japan, OH YEAH, JAPAN!"

I walked in from the gym this a.m. and he said, "Mom, if we leave here I'm going to lose a lot of friends." I explained that that is true. {I don't mean to be morbid but it HAS been our experience that most do not do well at keeping in touch when you move....though some will.} I told him that he'd miss his friends but that we could send emails, read their blogs...Jamin said to get his friends to get a facebook. ::Snort::

He looked at me and said, "But, Mom, YOU are going to lose all your sisters! too!!!!"

"What sisters, Zander?" I asked.

"All your co-op sisters!"

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.