Bringing In The New Year in Rachael Style

My son is convinced that his mother is verifiably weird. (Yes, he is a very smart boy, indeed!) My daughter is on the fence about this issue and the other is in denial. What we all agree on is that I don't do things the way everyone else does them and though my life can get expensive, it does not lack for laughs.


Tonight we spent New Year's Eve with friends. I was trying to figure out how to get a movie going (not having cable I can't navigate a TV anymore!) when I said, "How do you push play on this thing?"


My son is very literal. If I tell him to get dressed and then he can do such-in-such, he does exactly that. He puts on every item of clothes he is supposed to wear, but then gets bent out of shape when I tell him that brushing his teeth, brushing his hair, and washing his face are part of getting dressed.


"MOM! You said GET DRESSED. Brushing your teeth isn't getting dressed!"


Ok, technically he is correct, but surely he knows what I mean!


Eventually he'll learn about how he's supposed to be able to read a woman's mind.


So, my son, having a very literal mind, hears me ask how to push play on a DVD player and is now affirmed of his mother's weirdness. He looks up, sees the 2 new friends that joined us this New Year's, leans over to me and says in a hushed voice,


"Mom. Are you sure you want them to know you're weird?"


To which I reply, "Oh, Honey. They've read my blog."


Case closed. That satisfies his question.


As I mentioned, this was New Year's Eve. We spend every New Year's Eve with close friends. This year was fun because we had two new friends to share it with and because we had a costume party. A 70's costume party. I love costume parties! And I gave my costume much thought.


I didn't want to go the hippie route…everyone does that. But I also didn't want to spend a lot of money on a costume, which most of us understand these days.


I went the hippie route, but I had to do SOMETHiNG different! How could I jazz up this costume a bit? How could I make it a little more authentic with a twist of Rachael?


Let me say a big THANK YOU to Kiah. She was my inspiration. Without her I might never have come up with the perfect costume…











Oh, yes I did! I grew out my armpit hair. That big, bushy black thing you see there…that's real! I did not glue that on. I did not color it with a sharpie. Nope! That's the real thing right there!


My son rolled his eyes. My daughter turned her head away. My other daughter said, "MOM! That's GROSS! Shave it off!" and my poor husband...?


He just focused on his own costume.

It's a Curse, I Tell Ya!

I love Facebook!  It's so much fun to reconnect with people and it's a nice, quick way to keep in touch.  Some people make fun of this, but I like knowing that my friend, Rachel just canned 40-something cans of figs and that Patti wants to trade her kids in.  I enjoy hearing what one friend is hearing the guy next to him at the airport say about the Illuminate and I just love knowing that Matt loves his wife, Felicia.  Most of our friendships in life are nurtured during the mundane times.  They may become rock solid during times of crisis, but most of our time spent together is in the mundane.  I treasure those mundane posts.

Yesterday I reconnected with a friend that I haven't talked to since I was 15. It was so nice to reminisce and remember all those funny things we did as kids and to see how we have changed.  It was nice to hear what he was like as a "grown-up."  But mostly it was just nice to be connected again.

We instant messaged each other on Facebook for awhile, but I had to put a bit of time in at work today.  Once the kids were all ready and begging to leave, I asked him for his cell number and gave him a call.  We talked while I drove on my way to the gas station.

This is when I should have hung up.  Gas station...cell phone... You would think I would have remembered.  But no.  In fact, Robert (my old friend) and I joked about how I was "living on the edge" to use a cell phone while pumping gas.  Something about static electricity.  I even told him about how I drove off with the gas pump three times.  He didn't laugh.  He paused for a second and said, "...three times?"

I laughed, ran my card, turned to put the gas pump in my car, then realized I had forgotten to take the gas cap off.  Now, I'm holding a cell phone in one hand and the gas pump in the other.  I could have said something like, "Hold on," but that would have been too obvious an answer to this dilemma.  I'd never figure that out!  No, I put the gas pump under my arm and then unscrewed the gas cap.

I secured the pump with that little thingy that holds it in the "pump position" and continued my conversation.  I like to wash my windows while I wait for the gas to pump.  I cleaned the back window...and yes, I'm still talking on my cell phone.  I turn to check and see if my gas was done pumping and was surprised to see that it was done so quickly.  How nice!

I put the pump back.

Let me say that again.  I PUT THE PUMP BACK!!!  You're proud of me, aren't you!

I just have to say it one more time.  I put the pump back, screwed the gas cap on, got in my car, and drove off.  All the while, talking on my cell phone.

It's about 10 minutes to my work from the gas station and when I was oh, 3 minutes away, I glanced down to see a little orange light.  WHAT?  I'm out of gas?  Impossible!!!

That's when it hit me.  I forgot to pump the gas!!!  I didn't intend to (ok, who would actually intend to), but apparently I put the gas pump in the "pump position" and didn't make sure it was actually pumping gas!  Uh.... oops!

Robert got a bit of a chuckle out of that one!

So, as I told myself I would, I have to ask, "So, Rachael, what are you going to do about it?"  That's an easy one...

No more pumping gas while talking on the cell phone!

What You Cannot NOT Talk About

What?  Where am I?  I don't recognize this place.  Could it be...?  OH!  It's my blog!  It's been so long I forgot what it looked like!

October is always incredibly busy for our family.  I intentionally try not to schedule things in October because I know that every October is busy.  The calendar starts out with only a couple birthday plans scribbled in and evolves into something that resembles my daughter's bedroom...stuff everywhere!

It was one incredibly fun month!  We hosted lots of people in our home, including one weekend of some of our closest friends.  As one of them (James) was getting ready to head out, he said to me,

"Rachael, if I didn't know you and had just met you 5 minutes ago, I would know that you are really into worship."


...which got me to thinking about this quiz I took about what you should be blogging about.  "My Poor Husband" is not about worship and since the title, "My Poor Husband," seems like an odd title for a worship blog, I'm not intending for this blog to transform into a worship blog.  This post will just be for fun.  Besides, there are too many worship blogs out there for me to start a new one!

The quiz asks, "What can you not NOT talk about?"


The funny thing about James' comment is that I continually hold back from talking about it, most notably the music portion of worship.  The subject tends to halt a naturally flowing conversation and it doesn't take long before people are looking for something to do instead of looking at me while they pretend to listen.  Shoot, sometimes they don't even pretend and start talking to someone else or interrupt and completely change the subject!  I guess that qualifies as something I cannot NOT talk about!

Music moves me.  So deeply, in fact, that I am very careful about what I listen to.  Every part of me is involved in the process of listening to music.  My ears...obviously, but also my body as it instictively moves to the beat. (Actually, moving to the rhythm is a lot more fun!)  My mind is thinking about the chords and how certain notes make that certain part of that song so...so...gosh, I don't know.  That feeling you get so deep down inside your soul that you wish you could grab and hold onto it so tightly, yet you're afraid to let it out because you're not sure what might happen if you could actually look it in the face.  It might make you cry without an end in sight.  It might make you levitate as you dance across the room.  It might make you so angry that you fear the wrath inside of you.  Or it may physically knock you to the ground, searching for just a single word that you can offer to God to explain why it is you worship Him.

Yeah.  THAT part of the song.

My mind is also pondering the words to the song and wondering what the author's meaning is behind the words.

And my heart is experiencing such a range of emotions.  In one song I can feel energized, intrigued, sad, sappy, and dark.  There is a happiness in even the darkest songs simply because I am feeling.

That's what music does to me.

Worship.  That goes deeper.

...to be continued.  That's probably enough to digest for one night.