random thoughts from my day...

My day started out on my favorite chair with this on my lap...

I'm terrible at getting up early...I hate it actually.  But this morning I knew if I were to have a few moments to myself it was going to be before the kids woke up.  (SOMEone decided it would be a good idea to give them off school on a Tuesday.  WHY?)  It was a good day...and probably because I got up early. 

(Bonus material here:  My sister IS a morning person.  She's decided to go back to school this year, and so every morning she is up at some UNgodly time...last I heard it was a consistent 5am.  She manages to have her quiet reading time, coffee AND a walk at the Y before her kids are up and out the door at 7. 

She is A-mazing. And I hate her for it a little bit.  It's all I can do to get to the gym at ALL...you'd think visions of Her-Royal-Perkiness clocking the miles on the treadmill in the dark would motivate ME to break out the Nikes.  Sigh...it doesn't)

Emma drug me to the library the other day to check out "Lovely Bones".  Her friends are reading it and she wanted to, too.  I'm a total skeptic about the books kids are reading today.  And, they're readily available at the Middle School library - giving the assumption that they are all suitable to read.  I get the eye-roll everytime we have this conversation...which is why she drug me to the library, hoping to convince me that she should read it.  SO....

It's sitting by my bed and I'm checking it out for her.  I'm enjoying it through an adult's eyes...not so sure it'll pass the test for hers, though.  We'll see in a few days. 

I read "Twilight" this year, too, for the same reason.

It didn't pass the test, although I've watched the movie with her twice.  (*I wasn't a fan of the obsession that Bella had for Edward.  It didn't come out as much in the movie, but was 90% of the theme of the book.  A little too premature for a 13 year old girl....at least in my house.)  I understand the draw of it, though...even though I had no interest in it at first, it definitely got my attention and I was eager to finish it.  I can hear some of my readers questioning the "double standard"...why is it ok for me and not her?  I look at it this way: she is so impressionable. 

The world around her has a very strong message.  And it is this:  "Please yourself.  Do whatever makes you happy -you deserve it.  Make your own rules.  If it feels good to you, then it's ok." 

I object.

It's come to my attention more and more in the last few years that the kids of this generation - ESPECIALLY those who were raised in the church - have NO idea what is right and wrong.  They are masters of compromise and live lives of duplicity.  They buy into the world's message and are totally confused about what they believe in.  (I'm generalizing, I know...it's not ALL young people, I know, but there are many, many who are stuck in the world's rut)

Anyway..I'm getting way off the subject.  All of this to say, around here it's not easy to get approval on books...I wish it weren't so, but it's hard to find something that Emma WANTS to read that is completely free of language and questionable message.  It won't always be this way...there will come a time when I will be able to release her to make some of her own reading choices.  But as long as she is showing tendancies of being impressionable and vulnerable to every message around her but the Right One...I guess this is the path we'll continue to take.  Would it surprise you to hear that girls are SO different from boys in this area???!!!  At least in my house this is true.  My boys read whatever I brought home...and actually THANKED me for bringing them!  Emma...not so much!  It's sad, actually, the way girls have to fight their way through so much peer influence and the desire to blend in.  There's something nice about the ability boys have to just be themselves.  (I know, generalizing again...I'm only going by what I see in my own house.)

I've been following Stephanie Nielson's blog for a while...she has such a captivating story to tell.  If you've never been there, pour yourself a cup of coffee and prepare to be on the edge of your seat.  I'll let her tell you the details, but the very short version is that she and her husband were in a plane crash just over a year ago and she is blogging about her life and her ongoing recovery. 

I am constantly humbled by this woman.  She is enduring daily pain...and she is totally candid about it on her blog...but in the midst of her pain, she is living life.  And she is finding joy. This past week she had another corrective surgery and her husband took over her blog.  It was the sweetest thing.  Bookmark her...and when you are having a bad day or feeling sorry for yourself for whatever reason - read it again. 
She is one amazing woman. 

Well, that's it...it's almost midnight, and morning is around the corner.  (*Perhaps we're getting the idea of why it's so hard for me to get up early???) 
It's been another ordinary day around here....and for that I am thankful.