Yesterday afternoon, I “introduced” Noah to a bunch of toys he hadn’t played with since he discovered the “joys” of the DVD player and Netflix Instant Queue, not to mention the Wii.

He went nuts, and I had to put new batteries in a very annoying truck that makes obnoxious sounds when you push buttons, but it was not a problem for me. I would rather have those sounds filling the house than him sitting on the couch watching old Power Ranger episodes over and over.

So this morning, after he finally got his breakfast eaten, he got out his trucks again and came into the room where his dad and I were and said, “Mom, where’s the screwdriver?”

Dad: Why do you want the screwdriver?

Noah: I want to play.

Me: Your VBS shirt is in the dryer. Get dressed.

A few minutes later (he’s not dressed).

Noah: I need the screwdriver.

Dad: You’re not going to play with the screwdriver.

Me: No. He wants it to take off the back of some toy to put batteries in.

Dad: Oh. Noah, get dressed.

Dad headed off to the Y to lift weights.

Me: Noah, did you take your medicine?

Noah: I need the screwdriver. You don’t want me sitting, just watching TV, do you?
( so proud – he gets blackmail at the tender age of nine.)

Me: get dressed.

Noah: I think you have to help me. I don’t know where my shirt is.

Me: (I just got my mouth open)

Noah: Wait. I know. You told me. It’s…

Me: In the dryer.

A moment later, he has his shirt on but hasn’t changed his pajama pants.

I’m glad he’s playing and I think I can tune the obnoxious sounds out. But taking him to Bible School in his pajamas won’t work.

Do you know about Rebecca Black? She is this young girl whose mother paid $4,000 to a vanity video/music producer so Rebecca could record and make a video for this song called “Friday.”

You can’t see the video anymore on YouTube, but it went viral because a lot of people think it’s the worst song ever and it got millions of hits with people going to see if they agreed. The song was even featured on Glee which blew me away.

My family was talking about this and I said, “Oh, yeah, cuz she’s getting rich off this. Crying all the way to the bank.” The single was released and according to Wikipedia sold 40,000 copies.

Then my husband asked a very interesting question. He asked how I would feel if Fabric of Faith (my inspirational romance which was published in 2004 and is still available although I haven’t seen any royalties for four or five years) sold a million copies because people thought it was the worst book ever written?

Well, at first I wanted to say, “Sure, cool, fine.” However, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it’s not better the way things are now.

I mean, I want a publishing career, not just one bestseller. I want fans who wait breathlessly for my next book. I don’t know if that will ever happen, but if my book was a bestseller because people thought it was so terrible, wouldn’t that ruin my chances to actually sell something else?

I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to risk it.

I don’t think I would.

But the checks would still cash, right?

We’re doing Vacation Bible School at our church this week and as always, I am the Drama Leader. I get to ham it up and act totally loony all in the name of Jesus. I absolutely love it. Of course, I’m exhausted when I get home and this year I’ve taken a pain pill each day at lunch as by the time I come home my back, feet and hip are hurting.

Today we did the story of Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal. I got to tell the kids that I wanted to sacrifice a bull but Father Tom wouldn’t let me. (Yesterday, which was about creation, I told them I wanted to set off explosions and have the ocean roll through the classroom but the principal said no.)

Anyway, at the beginning of my class, the kids meet me outside the room, and I do a little opening to get the ready for the presentation.

Today I asked if they could tell me a character they see on TV that they KNOW is Absolutely Fake. The notes used SpongeBob for instance.

I got Barbie and Iron Man and Spiderman and SpongeBob. My darling son said, “Doctor Who.” I love that my boy knows the Doctor isn’t real!

However, two of the junior helpers, who looked like they were in high school, turned to each other and said, “Who’s Doctor Who?”

That’s just so sad.

Some of my friends know that I love to sew. I mean, LOVE to sew. I had actually forgotten how much until this weekend.

Our house has this HUGE rec room (30 x 24) and roughly half of is has been taken over by my craft stuff. This includes an old dining room table I “inherited” from my friend when she got a new one. It’s got a burn spot in the middle where she let a candle burn too long and the side leaves don’t stay level with the rest of the table, but it’s great for hard use like to cut out patterns or for craft stuff.

Anyway, over time, because it’s a horizontal surface, it’s become covered with all kinds of stuff – papers, magazines, boxes, whatever.

When my mother died, I inherited all her sewing stuff as I’m the only one in the family interested. My mom was a widow, lived alone and sewing/quilting was her passion. So, now I have a computerized sewing machine and TONS of stuff added to the ton of stuff I accumulated.

At the end of last week, I found myself sitting at the table which has now pretty much been cleared off so I can use it to take pictures for my Etsy shop and just to show my husband that there actually is a use for it other than as a landfill! I pulled out a length of fabric from on of the five cabinets he bought me to store my stuff. I decided to make something out of it, so the next day I went to Hancock Fabrics and got a blouse pattern for myself and a pajama pattern for Noah. I KNOW there’s a lot of stuff I bought to sew for him.

Yesterday, I spent the whole day playing with my fabric and rediscovering projects I’d forgotten about. I found a dress I cut out for myself years ago, which was all ready to go, and started working on it.

I realized that there was only half the instructions and started to panic. Then I calmed down and thought, “Hey, I’ve been sewing almost 40 years. I know how to do this. I don’t need the instructions. I wasn’t really reading them anyway; just looking at the pictures.”

I think I need to think this way more often in my life. I know what I’m doing and I shouldn’t let the lack of confidence paralyze me. In fact, I shouldn’t even have this lack of confidence. The worst thing that could happen is that I make a mistake and toss the dress, and where’s the loss then? I didn’t remember I had it; I don’t know how long those pieces have been waiting for me; no one would be hurt.

It’s the same with everything. Take a chance, trust yourself, and you might be surprised what you can do.

I picked up my son from soccer camp today. He’s been going there every day and will be there every morning until the end of the week. This is his third year and from all accounts, he loves it.

Anyway, it’s been super hot here in Louisiana, so by the time I pick him up at noon, he’s very hot and sweaty.

He got in the car today, grabbed the bottle of water from the cup holder and said, “Oh, I smell like overcooked sausage. Sausage and dirt.”

“I guess you’ll have to take a shower when you get home.”

“Oh, yeah, I think so.”

This is a busy day for my son.

As a normal 9-year-old boy who had ADHD, summer can be hard on my darling Noah. This is the first year he’s actually had friends who knock on the door asking if “Noah can come out and play,” and for that I’m totally grateful. Last summer was rough as he spent whatever time wasn’t crammed with activity (and only so much he wants to do with me) sitting in front of the TV staring at whatever the video of choice was.

I signed him up for soccer camp which is this week. It’s his third year doing it and he enjoys it. He’s also taking swimming lessons which started last week and are this week, too. AND he’s doing summer basketball at the Y, his second time doing it.

So, today has an unusual confluence of events that he had soccer this morning, and at 4 he has swimming and at 6-8 basketball.

I picked him up from soccer and was actually delighted to see that his shirt was dirty and sweaty and his face had dirt and mud on it. He played hard!

I’d promised him a trip to Chick-fil-a after soccer and as we walked to the car after camp, I asked him if he still wanted to go there. He said he was starving, so yes.

Noah: “Can we get milkshakes after with your money? I’m trying to save up for a Mustang.” (see previous posts about his Mustang obsession)

Me: “Well, I’m trying to save my money, too, you know.”

Noah: “But you have a job and get more money.”

Me: “I don’t have a job.”

Noah: “You should take a job, Mom. Then you can get one dollar, two dollars, three dollars.”

If you’ve read much of this blog, you know that I feel lost most of the time when it comes to my kids’ schools.

Well, turns out that I’m apparently confused in the rest of my life, too.

Every year, I sign my son up for swimming lessons at the local YMCA. He LOVES the water and LOVES to swim. (A neighbor once suggested that we didn’t adopt him but found him washed up on the beach or something.)

EVERY year, I forget to write down the week that his lessons were, so I called the Y and asked. When they told me, I realized that there was going to be a conflict with his soccer camp (which runs from 9-12 every day) next week. I told them that the second week of his lessons would conflict so they nicely said I could keep the same weeks, but change the time to 4 pm from 10 am.

Okay, so the lessons started the day after Memorial Day, Tuesday, so we went to the pool at 3:45 pm. At around 4, the lifeguard asked if we were here for lessons and his name.

Turns out they didn’t have him listed for this week at any time! However, they had a class he could join. I asked the lifeguard if I’d screwed up and brought him to the wrong class. She said it didn’t matter because he would fit right in with a class already scheduled at 4 for his age. She suggested that maybe because the time was changed, that information was never conveyed to the right person.

The woman I talked to a couple of weeks ago did say she was going to have to write a note about Noah changing his time, so maybe, regardless of how this all looks, it wasn’t me who was confused this time!

As much as Microsoft is everywhere and trying as hard as possible to take over the world, my vote for Mad Scientist/Evil Overlord is Steve Jobs.

Even if everyone I know seems to have an Iphone and EVERYONE on all my favorite TV shows do, I don’t. I seriously can’t afford it and the only reason my husband has one is because he got it from work.

A couple of years ago, at Christmas, my husband got me an Ipod. I don’t listen to much music on it because it truly eats power but I have come to depend on it to be my calendar and my watch and alarm clock and basic personal organizer.

A while back the screen was cracked, like someone took a pick or something and tapped it – cracks radiating from what appeared to the an “epicenter.”

It was useable but I did fear the glass would fall out, so I took it to one of those places that advertise they can fix it in “Five Minutes.”

Well, they said they didn’t have a screen for my second generation (read old and nearly obsolete) Ipod, but they’d be in in a day or two. So, I took it back in a day or so and the woman said it would take her about an hour (Five Minutes?) because they were so backed up.

Nearly two hours later, she called and said it was ready. I went in, paid my $70+ and took it home.

Within an hour of that I noticed that the button on the bottom – the only “button” – had stopped working. I couldn’t get out of any program I was in. If I turned it off and back on, I would be at the home screen and could use another program, but that got to be a pain.

I took it back and she said that sometimes a small piece of the glass gets into the home button and it needed to be replaced. BUT they didn’t have any of those in stock and would have to order them.

After a couple of weeks, I’d called and got an answering machine. For two weeks, I’d call every Monday. Finally, I got a human who said the buttons have to come from KOREA.

Okay, doesn’t Apple have some manufacturing plant somewhere that has an assembly line or something with a station that has a bin of buttons for some underpaid factory worker to put in the proper place?

Failing that, isn’t Korea a place that has modern airports and Western style delivery type systems? Why in the world would it take SIX WEEKS for a part ordered from KOREA to get here? Do they have to be hand carved by blind Buddhist monks, using tools they have to create themselves and then discard each time? Then the precious buttons are carried, one at a time, on satin pillows, down from a snow-covered mountain top by one-legged sherpas?

Honestly!

Finally, I called and they told me the buttons were in. So, I took the Ipod into the repair place and the woman said it was going to take half an hour to fix and did I want to leave it? I said absolutely not, and I sat down and waited.

After a while, I got my lovely little Ipod back, all fixed.

THEN –

A week or so ago, I noticed that the second row of icons wouldn’t work. It also meant that I couldn’t do anything with the wifi settings and since we secured our home wifi, I couldn’t put the code in.

The other day, my daughter wanted to go the Mall to buy birthday gifts for two friends. I went with her and we passed the Apple store.

I thought, ‘Oh, cool. I’ll stop in and they’ll tell him the thing isn’t repairable or all I need to do is reboot the whole thing and it’ll work.’ I dug around in my purse and found the I had it with me so I went in.

I explained the situation to the woman with the iPad at the door. She
tapped a few things into her device, then said:

“Okay, so I have you down for a 7:50 appointment. We’re running about ten minutes behind but someone will be with you.”

I looked a her for a moment, then said, “Wait. You mean now?”

“Well, in about fifteen minutes, but yes.”

I turned to Juliette and said, “Do you want to go get the gifts and then come back?” She looked a little frustrated so the woman said “Do you want to make the appointment for another day?”

I told her no as I’d forget to do it. As long as I was there, I’d get it over with.

So Juliette left and after waiting 15-20 minutes where I did nothing but wander around the Apple store and text my brother, a guy came over and I told him what the problem was. He looked at my Ipod and asked if I’d had the screen replaced.

I said I had and he said they don’t even replace cracked screens. They would have replaced the whole inside set up and having just the screen replaced messed up my touch function. I didn’t even bother to tell him about the button fiasco.

The bottom line is that they could replace the Ipod at cost – $99 or if I recycled my Ipod with them I could have a 10% discount.

Juliette says that’s a lot cheaper than a new Ipod. I don’t know because I don’t check on these things.

Anyway, getting the screen fixed was apparently a bad idea all the way around, but for the moment I’m hanging on to my current one. I can’t get internet at home or do some of my stuff, but I don’t know that I can afford $90 either.

I’m on our church’s VBS committee as well as doing drama every year. I love it. I love making a fool of myself for Jesus!

However, the committee meetings are hard for me sometimes. I don’t know all these people. I mean, I’m getting to know some of the committee members although there are still a couple whose names I might not know, or if I do know that, they might not know me much because if I see them outside of the meeting room, they are appropriately polite, but not overly friendly.

I’m guessing I’m never going to be “friends” with some of them.

Tonight was a tough meeting. There is a woman in our church and who usually does VBS and who I’m friends with on Facebook, who apparently has a son who was in some horrific accident and nearly died. I think I was the only one sitting at that table that didn’t know this. I gather, from the conversation swirling around me, it had to do with a water slide and possibly a party of some kind.

I just looked at her Facebook page and there’s only posts from people wishing her the best and a speedy recovery for the child.

I don’t know how they all knew this but I know I’m not in the grapevine.

I also never know half the women they mention when talking about potential volunteers.

Does this come from not growing up in a place, not going to church with these same people for 35 years or whatever?

How long do you have to be part of something to be PART of it?? However long it is, six years isn’t it.

I have been thrilled to see how the people at my husband’s work respect him and come to him for advice and trust him with responsibility. I was there when he was in graduate school and for years he had no self-esteem and thought he’d never get anywhere in his chosen career. It’s been a long journey to get here but it’s paid off for him.

He says the only reason that people come to him for advice and think he knows what he’s doing is because he’s “old” now (late 40s) and has gray hair (or late least more than he used to).

An interesting thing happened to me at the last HeartLA meeting. As most of my friend know, I have no problem speaking in front of people. In fact, I love doing it, so when our vice president/program director said they needed someone to speak at the June meeting, I said I would and I asked what they wanted me to speak on.

Suddenly, everyone in the group started talking about self-editing and grammar and asking me questions about the book I edited for Crescent Moon Press and asking if I would talk about that.

I said I would, but the thing that surprised me was that all these women were asking my advice and help. One of them even asked if I would look at her book and help her with the editing. Actually, she had asked my daughter of Paperbacks and Frosting fame if she’d “review” her book and I pointed out that she’s reading published books, as it’s a review site not a critique place.

She said she really needed someone to “critique” her book although that wasn’t the word she used. I told her I’d read it.

She acted as though I’d offered her a publishing contract. “You’d really do that for me?”

I told her of course I would and we agreed that she’d send me the first few chapters as that would make her less uneasy about someone else reading it.

I came home thinking how odd it was that all these people look to me for advice and help when my last book came out SEVEN years ago.

Then I realized what it was.

I am older than most of them and I have gray hair!

Maybe they see me as the wise old woman of the group.

Or maybe I’m just the most talkative one (and I am one of the Rowdy Girls – some uncharitable people say I’m the instigator of the Rowdy Girls) and so I offer a lot of opinions and that give the illusion that I know a lot.

Maybe I shouldn’t color my hair after all.