7 Quick Takes (Volume 171)

1) You may have noticed I've been MIA this week. My beloved little laptop crashed on me Monday morning. This was especially sickening because I worked all weekend on a little talk I'm supposed to give this coming Monday and was nearly done when, POOF! MANY pages of notes were gone. I also have a major writing project that needs to be done by the first week in March. I was already WAY behind and then lost what little I had done, not to mention the time I lost as I waited to see what could be retrieved. Can you say meltdown?

It ended up being another one of those times my own words flung back in my face. You'll never believe what the title for my talk is.

Only God Makes Good of Everything!

By Wednesday I could find the humor in that.

2) Lucky for me, I have good friends who know more about this computer stuff than me. One friend was able to retrieve the files I was pressed to work on, while another has figured out how to fix it. Kevin's laptop actually crashed about a month ago with a fried hard drive. Because of its age, we decided it wasn't cost effective to fix it. The hard drive on my computer is fine, but another issue makes it not worth the expense to fix, so my friend is going to take the hard drive out of my computer and put it into his. If I understand this correctly, I'll have my computer back with a different body.

As a friend of mine said, "Resurrection!"

There is no end to the spiritual lessons here, is there?

3) I set a brand new stick of butter at the dinner table and after Ladies Man used it, it looked like this.

Me: What did you do to the butter?

Ladies Man:I had to show I was a man.

Me: To the butter?!

Ladies Man: Yeah. It gave me a dirty look.

I guess we all need to watch ourselves around him. He's feeling pretty manly now that P90X is starting to show in his body. Don't look at him the wrong way!

4) I started to get a big head this week as every time I drove by, people on the street turned to look at me. Am I that charismatic, that appealing?

Then I realized I was driving our noisy truck.

5) The older our kids get, the harder it is to get our whole family together at the same time. We were trying to hook up with Drummer Boy and Drama Queen last week for lunch and due to conflicting schedules only managed to find a one hour window where we could all be together. But my heart was encouraged that everyone wanted to make it work. It is the biggest surprise of my life that my children actually like each other. Who knew when Drama Queen was knocking little Ladies Man over as a baby, that one day she'd think he was all that and want to hang out with him? Perhaps real bonding was happening as the older three drug Miss Innocent One by her feet all over the floor telling me, "She likes it!" I guess kids can forgive each other for stealing the best seat in the van and eating the last piece of pizza. At the time I wondered if I'd be able to make it through some days, but it's SOOO satisfying now.

6) Congratulations to Miss Innocent One and her middle school show choir which got second place in a show choir competition this week in Omaha. I'd show you pics, but I'm the lammo mother who forgot her camera. Here's one I swiped off of Facebook. Miss Innocent One is smack dab in the middle in front of the boys in the black shirts.

Don't they look smashing? LOVE their outfits.

7) I've had a blast this week rehearsing with the orchestra for a community theater production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. The show takes place in the 1920's so there's tons of great jazz licks. I keep busy swapping my clarinet, soprano sax and alto sax throughout. The show runs this weekend and next for those of you who live nearby. I can't tell you what the show looks like as we are completely hidden back stage, but it sounds good.

Have a terrific weekend friends and catch more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.