FAMILY: Spend time with your children one-on-one. (I know that this is a recurring theme, already, but it is important for me to spend quality time with each of my children apart from the others).
FRIENDS: Do not gossip. No good ever comes of it. It makes you look bad and other feel bad.
FAITH:Loving God,
Sometimes my heart
turns in every direction
except towards you.
Please help me
to turn my heart toward you,
to gaze upon you in trust
and to seek your kingdom with all of my heart.
Soften my hardened heart
so that I might love others
as a way to glorify and worship you.
Grant me this
with the ever-present guidance of your spirit.
2.27.2010
Mardi Gras Package and Scooting
Aunt Jeanne, Uncle Martin, Tripp and Ashton sent the kids a Mardi Gras package and the kids made a short video thanking them. I tried to e-mail the video to them, but it said that the file was too big. So I am going to attempt to post it here. Here's hoping I can get it to work!
Oh and while I am waiting for it to upload (is it supposed to take this long?), I will announce that Sam is officially scooting. He is not up on hands and knees but doing what I call the "army crawl." Wanna take bets on how long it will be until he crawls? Papa guessed three weeks. I am thinking that was a pretty conservative estimate. All the boy has gotta do is figure out how to get his knees underneath him and he will be off. He is bound and determined to start keeping up with Ward and Ann Park!
Oh and while I am waiting for it to upload (is it supposed to take this long?), I will announce that Sam is officially scooting. He is not up on hands and knees but doing what I call the "army crawl." Wanna take bets on how long it will be until he crawls? Papa guessed three weeks. I am thinking that was a pretty conservative estimate. All the boy has gotta do is figure out how to get his knees underneath him and he will be off. He is bound and determined to start keeping up with Ward and Ann Park!
2.26.2010
Recon Mission in Afghanistan
Ted forwarded the below in an email. Not sure where he got it and it is a bit crass, but I thought worth posting. We all get such a jaded view of the war from the television - just what they and the White House want us to know. But this is real. It is real. People are doing this every day.
From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the Sand Pit it's freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains , along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River , watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.
I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but the scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard.. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.
The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water. That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware. We bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement.
It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.
I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel-plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know me, I'm a romantic. I've said it before and I'll say it again: This country blows, man. It's not even a country. There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit shit hole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.
Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That's it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu, if that's your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those 'tent cities of the walking dead' is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.
I've been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks, and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtuns, for over a month-and-a-half now, and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of 'em, are Huns... actual, living Huns.. They LIVE to fight. It's what they do. It's ALL they do. They have no respect for anything, not for their families, nor for each other, nor for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism. Cavemen with AK-47's. Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.
I'm freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice, and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours. Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban 'smart.' They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is 'cunning.' The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They are sneaky and ruthless, and when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they're real smart.
They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.
OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon, so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice, but I'm good at it.
Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives. The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We've got this one under control The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here, because you have no idea what we're doing, and really, you don't want to know. We are your military, and we are doing what you sent us here to do.
Saucy Jack
Recon Marine in Afghanistan
Semper Fi
"Freedom is not free...but the U.S. Marine Corps will
pay most of your share".
From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the Sand Pit it's freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains , along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River , watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.
I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but the scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard.. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.
The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water. That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware. We bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement.
It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.
I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel-plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know me, I'm a romantic. I've said it before and I'll say it again: This country blows, man. It's not even a country. There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit shit hole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.
Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That's it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu, if that's your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those 'tent cities of the walking dead' is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.
I've been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks, and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtuns, for over a month-and-a-half now, and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of 'em, are Huns... actual, living Huns.. They LIVE to fight. It's what they do. It's ALL they do. They have no respect for anything, not for their families, nor for each other, nor for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism. Cavemen with AK-47's. Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.
I'm freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice, and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours. Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban 'smart.' They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is 'cunning.' The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They are sneaky and ruthless, and when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they're real smart.
They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.
OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon, so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice, but I'm good at it.
Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives. The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We've got this one under control The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here, because you have no idea what we're doing, and really, you don't want to know. We are your military, and we are doing what you sent us here to do.
Saucy Jack
Recon Marine in Afghanistan
Semper Fi
"Freedom is not free...but the U.S. Marine Corps will
pay most of your share".
Lenten Reflection
FAMILY: Clean up the house today. Go through that stuff that has been sitting in a basket somewhere for weeks. Put up your kids toys (that they should have put away!). Don't complain or ask your husband to notice. Serve your family in that way today.
FRIENDS: Take a friend a flower today and tie a Bible verse to the stem. Tell her that you wanted to brighten her day.
FAITH: I have been thinking a lot about the meaning of Easter. Of course I know that it is to remind us that Jesus died to forgive my sins. But how can I apply that lesson to my life? I need to forgive others when they hurt me, fail me, don't live up to my expectations, etc. And I need to forgive not begrudgingly like I so often do, but with the same passion, love, patience and kindness of Jesus.
FRIENDS: Take a friend a flower today and tie a Bible verse to the stem. Tell her that you wanted to brighten her day.
FAITH: I have been thinking a lot about the meaning of Easter. Of course I know that it is to remind us that Jesus died to forgive my sins. But how can I apply that lesson to my life? I need to forgive others when they hurt me, fail me, don't live up to my expectations, etc. And I need to forgive not begrudgingly like I so often do, but with the same passion, love, patience and kindness of Jesus.
Love-Hate Relationships
I definitely have a love-hate relationship with working out, as I am sure most people do out there. Of course, my crazy friend Angela loves it all, but she is in the vast minority of my friends, I think. I have been using a personal trainer on and off since I had Ward. I started because I wanted to loose baby weight, but then got pregnant with Ann Park and the cycle started all over again. But after Ann Park I was able to lose all the weight and feel good about the way I looked.
Well, I am definitely not there yet after 9 months with my beloved Sam. I am close, but not there. I continued with the trainer after I had Sam, but I had just lost that spark. I dreaded going and then every time I had to write that fat check I was pissed. I mean, it wasn't like the whole workout thing was rocket science. So I decided to quit the trainer and just start back at the YMCA.
I have been doing that for about a month now with mixed results. I have good weeks and bad. One week didn't go at all. But today I went to my first class. I used to love going to exercises classes in law school, but I was in good shape then and knew that I would be able to totally keep up with the teacher and the rest of the class. That is NOT the position I am in today. But I didn't care. It is was a Muscle Works class. And it kicked my butt. Literally. I don't know if I will be able to go down stairs tomorrow we did so many lunges. And while I was hating it while I was doing it, I am loving it now. Love-hate, see?
Well, I am definitely not there yet after 9 months with my beloved Sam. I am close, but not there. I continued with the trainer after I had Sam, but I had just lost that spark. I dreaded going and then every time I had to write that fat check I was pissed. I mean, it wasn't like the whole workout thing was rocket science. So I decided to quit the trainer and just start back at the YMCA.
I have been doing that for about a month now with mixed results. I have good weeks and bad. One week didn't go at all. But today I went to my first class. I used to love going to exercises classes in law school, but I was in good shape then and knew that I would be able to totally keep up with the teacher and the rest of the class. That is NOT the position I am in today. But I didn't care. It is was a Muscle Works class. And it kicked my butt. Literally. I don't know if I will be able to go down stairs tomorrow we did so many lunges. And while I was hating it while I was doing it, I am loving it now. Love-hate, see?
2.25.2010
5 Year Old's 911 Call
This is a clip from the Bonnie Hunt Show of a 5 year old girl who talked to the 911 Dispatcher while her daddy apparently was having a heart attack. She is so calm and collected, so concerned for her dad. But there are also some funny parts. I just pray that if I ever needed an ambulance Ward could be so with it. Not sure. Need to talk about that one.
Oh and a shout-out to Louisa for teaching me how to post You Tube videos on blogger!! Love ya girl!
Oh and a shout-out to Louisa for teaching me how to post You Tube videos on blogger!! Love ya girl!
Lenten Reflection
FAMILY: Play a game with your children. Ward chose t-ball and Ann Park soccer. It is cold but beautiful outside. How could a mom say no?
FRIENDS: Do something nice for someone, like putting a word of encouragement on a sticky note or even putting more money in a a parking meter. Don't let the person know that you did it.
FAITH: Be quiet for 5 minutes. Meditate and pray. Listen. (I know 5 minutes doesn't seem like a long time but it is an eternity to me when you are talking about being quiet and still.)
FRIENDS: Do something nice for someone, like putting a word of encouragement on a sticky note or even putting more money in a a parking meter. Don't let the person know that you did it.
FAITH: Be quiet for 5 minutes. Meditate and pray. Listen. (I know 5 minutes doesn't seem like a long time but it is an eternity to me when you are talking about being quiet and still.)
2.24.2010
Lenten Reflection
Okay so I just realized I have been spelling Lenten incorrectly. Not a big deal but it just shows how attached I have gotten to spell check and that little red line that appears under a word when Word thinks that I have misspelled it! But back to the post:
FAMILY: Pray with your children today. Talk to them about the meaning and significance of prayer, even if you don't think that they really understand you.
FRIENDS: Do you know anyone who has a loved one in the military who is deployed? Send that person a special note today thanking them for what they do for us. (This is a friends and family one for me since my first cousin's husband is in Afghanistan. We are sending him a package this week!)
FAITH: I love this prayer that I found today. It really hit me this morning.
Dear Lord,
I know you receive what is in my heart.
Let me be inspired by your words
and by the actions of your son, Jesus.
Guide me to make sacrifices this Lent
in the spirit of self-denial
and with greater attention to you
and to those around me.
Help me to believe that you will grant me this
because of the sacrifice Jesus made for me.
FAMILY: Pray with your children today. Talk to them about the meaning and significance of prayer, even if you don't think that they really understand you.
FRIENDS: Do you know anyone who has a loved one in the military who is deployed? Send that person a special note today thanking them for what they do for us. (This is a friends and family one for me since my first cousin's husband is in Afghanistan. We are sending him a package this week!)
FAITH: I love this prayer that I found today. It really hit me this morning.
Dear Lord,
I know you receive what is in my heart.
Let me be inspired by your words
and by the actions of your son, Jesus.
Guide me to make sacrifices this Lent
in the spirit of self-denial
and with greater attention to you
and to those around me.
Help me to believe that you will grant me this
because of the sacrifice Jesus made for me.
2.23.2010
Lenton Reflection
FAMILY: Be patient with a child today who needs a little extra patience.
FRIENDS: Smile at a stranger today. It may be the only smile s/he sees all day.
FAITH: Try to be more selfless in all that you do.
Father of my soul,
Mother of my heart,
I know your love for me is limitless beyond imagining.
You care for me as a loving parent.
Through my smallest Lenten sacrifices,
help me to become less selfish
and more aware of your ways.
Fan the flame of my desire
to draw ever closer to you.
Guide me to seek your love.
FRIENDS: Smile at a stranger today. It may be the only smile s/he sees all day.
FAITH: Try to be more selfless in all that you do.
Father of my soul,
Mother of my heart,
I know your love for me is limitless beyond imagining.
You care for me as a loving parent.
Through my smallest Lenten sacrifices,
help me to become less selfish
and more aware of your ways.
Fan the flame of my desire
to draw ever closer to you.
Guide me to seek your love.
2.22.2010
Snow
It has snowed in Birmingham more this winter than it did all myyears of growing up here. I think that my kids think that it always snows here . . . they have a lot to learn! The latest snow occurred on Friday, February 12. It was my kind of snow since it didn't get icy, hinder any driving, and we didn't loose power. The kids were out of school, but they had a blast. I have been meaning to post the pictures. They had the best time!
The couldn't wait to get into the snow as soon as they saw it!
Ward decided that he was going to make a snowman . . . all by himself!
STRONG MAN!
Ward's snowman - made without any adult help!
Once Ted got home, he took Ward sledding
The sunset was beautiful that afternoon.
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