My List of Grievances

Scene of the crime: Sowers house
Victim: Me
Culprit: black rug by the back door
Offense: a wet sock
Verdict: GUILTY!

Last week I was walking to the closet by the back door when it happened: I stepped on a wet spot on the rug and got a wet sock. Right away I said aloud, "Uh! I HATE when that happens!" David heard me and asked what my problem was, and upon being told he agreed; wet socks are a pain.

But after this happened I started to think of other things that bother me. So I started to compile a list of occurrences that annoy me. At first I found it kind of funny, but after awhile I realized that a lot of those annoyances were actually opportunities for me to show patience. I often pray that God would grant me patience, and I see now that what He gives me are ample chances for me to demonstrate patience. (Prayer answered!) ☺

I decided to post this list so we can all get a chuckle, but also so we can see the opportunities that God gives us to respond to irksome situations in a way that glorifies Him.

Some of my grievances:

• wet socks (this was worth mentioning twice)
• leaving a room and forgetting something in that room
• walking into a room and forgetting why you came in there in the first place
• slow computers
• slow Internet connection
• sitting down and getting comfortable and then realizing you left the TV remote across the room
• getting snuggled in bed and then a cat jumps on the bed and you remember that you didn't check to see if there were any cats in the room before you got into bed
• waking up 5 minutes before your alarm is supposed to go off
• pens that don't work
• when every channel/radio station plays commercials at the same time
• the sound of a cat with a hair ball
• going to the cupboard to eat a snack only to find the box is empty but has been left in its place
• when a person parked and took up two stalls
• shopping carts left in the parking lot and not returned to the corral
• when your rubber band breaks
• washing your car and then it rains the next day
• when you're eating marshmallow cereal and you get down to the last few bites only to have run out of the marshmallow bits
• knowing you're going to be late
• having to pay late fees

Pictures of my girls

 Abby just loves to wear people's reading glasses. Gram-Gram has a nice basket full of them, and Abby partakes of it often.

 We briefly studied gladiators during school, and Paige decided to dress like one. But as Grandma pointed out she looks Grecian more than anything. Valiant effort though! ☺

 I snapped this picture of Abby and her cousin Brett while serving in the nursery during church. I couldn't get them to look at me and smile. They're still so cute!

Emma lost both top front teeth within a couple weeks of each other. She's missing the bottom ones as well. Makes me think of the song "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth." She'll ask for a snack, and I'll say, "Have an apple." Then I'll remember that she can't eat them right now! *laughing to myself*

"Let me off! I don't feel so good." *queasy look*

I haven't done a poll update in so long that I decided to make a comment on my last poll.

I asked the question: Do merry-go-rounds make you sick? Four people said "no", and eight said "yes". I had to vote a whole-hearted YES!

Oh my, I can't even look at a merry-go-round without getting sick to my stomach. That's right--just watching them makes me ill. Same goes for swings. It's rather unfortunate because I used to love swinging. We have a nice porch swing that I really enjoy sitting on and reading during the warmer months. But the movement of the swing, even slightly, makes me sick. Often the girls or one of their friends will bound up to me and shake the swing, and then I'll have to say, "No! Don't move the swing!" They don't understand of course. I mean, it's a swing; it ought to be used as such. ☺

My mom and I took my girls to the amusement park this summer, and we had a debate about which rides she and I were going to go on with the girls since we both knew that the rides would make us both sick. But we both took Dramamine® at the beginning of the day and hoped for the best. We ended up doing fairly well between the two of us.

One thing I've noticed as an adult is that the older I get - and seemingly the more times I'm pregnant - the more easily nauseated I become. Loads of thanks to whomever created Dramamine® as it's saved me many-a-time!

My next poll has to do with the upcoming holidays. Enjoy!

Jokes By Paige

I think Paige is a budding comedienne. She frequently will say to me, "Hey, Mom!" followed by a Q/A joke. I really ought to write down more of them as she has come up with quite a few. Here are two jokes that she made up this past week:

Q: What kind of fish did the knight fight?
A: A swordfish.

Q: What kind of food plays on the playground?
A: Teeter tot hotdish.

Abby can "play" the drums! ;- )

Young children seem to really enjoy banging on drums. I have several pictures of Paige and Emma playing on my brother's drum set. They are always hesitant at first, probably thinking, "Am I actually allowed to hit these big round cans?!"

Is that what they do for fun?

Conversation heard by me between my oldest girls:

Emma: "Yay! Break time! Paige, let's go play that game I wanted to play."
Paige: no comment.
Emma: "Please?"
Paige: still no comment
Emma: "Please, Paige? I'll do whatever you want. I promise. Except let you kick me in the face."

I'm still chuckling to myself. ☺

Have you ever wondered how many germs are on the magazines at the doctor?

I ask that question because I have thought of it before. Think of how many people have touched them in any given day. Kind of gives you the shivers, huh? Despite that thought I still grab the magazines or newspaper without thinking twice whenever I visit the eye doctor or dentist, etc. I like to read magazines, and according to my last poll so do many of my readers. Seven of us like them so much that we even subscribe to at least one magazine. I have to state for the record that the Sowers household gets quite a few magazines. Here is how many we get according to each person:

Emma--1
Paige--2
Me--3
David--4

Sometimes it's tough for me to balance reading my magazines with reading books. I usually don't have time to page through an entire issue of Reader's Digest unless I spend several weeks dedicated to completing it. And one of my magazines I simply give to my mother-in-law.

Part of the reason why we have so many magazines coming to our house is because a few of them I've gotten free subscriptions to. That's right folks, FREE! I subscribe to an email newsletter called Free Snatcher, and almost daily there are discounted or free magazine subscriptions. It's pretty great. Just the other day I got my mom 3 months of Redbook. And David got 2 years of Car & Driver for free as well.
...Emma just said that the mailman came, and "There's a magazine." Is it one of mine?! Nope. Just another one for David. :-)

One week later and...

...my little herbs have sprouted!! Six of the eight types of herbs have sprouts in the pots. And the chamomile has many. I'm SO excited! ☺