What would you do to enjoy a good beer?

Clay and I recently watched a delightful foreign film, this was either before or after. It is too fun not to share.

Men's Meeting

Men's Meeting at our church is the first Friday of every month. The men meet at our Pastor's home, they sing hymns, listen to a lesson from our Pastor, discuss things, drink beer and smoke a cigar or pipe. It is quite the event and I know my husband really enjoys going. When we were first married I hated men's meetings, really. I didn't want to be alone. I was nervous at night by myself, and I was bored and just missed my sweet husband. I would complain and imply that I didn't want him to go, and sometimes he would stay home. And when he did go he wouldn't stay that late. Looking back I was really quite the brat.

I'm not sure when my attitude adjustment started taking shape, but I realized that although Clay did want to go he wasn't really enjoying it because he knew I was having such a hard time. So I started "planning" what my night would look like so I had something fun and out of the ordinary to do. Tonight is a men's meeting night and I watched a couple episodes of the Walton's, made some earrings, piled more clean laundry onto the pile, made gluten free chocolate chip pancakes, tried to snuggle with my sleeping 2 year old but he wanted to go back to his bed, and now...I am blogging. Sound fun? It was indeed. I will probably start reading my book in a little bit and probably when I doze off my sweet husband will come home and I will ask him a ton of questions...what did Pastor teach on? Who was there? What beers did you try? Did anyone smoke your pipe (I think this is gross, but guys don't...)? But you know, since I have started planning my night, I look forward to men's meetings. Not because my husband is away (I still miss him) but because I have something different to do and Clay is with other great men doing something out of the ordinary as well. This may sound strange to some of you, but I think there are things that men and women do to feel masculine or feminine. For a man, drinking beer and smoking a pipe is masculine. There is something about sitting around together, popping the top to a cold bottle and then talking about it. I have heard them, somewhere in there is a great thrill. :) I know these things are not the root of masculinity but it is nice to "feel" it. Just like a woman might like to wear earrings, paint her toe nails, have a pretty apron to wear, get a new hair cut, or slap on some lip gloss, the bottom line is to feel feminine and nice. I don't think these things are bad (in moderation of course) but just the opposite, I think these means to feeling masculine and feminine are good. Of course, masculinity and femininity are a condition of the heart but there are little things to help along the way. Maybe the sweetness of the pancakes is getting to me but I feel like I am rambling and not conveying my idea well. :) Bottom line, I have learned my husband needs to feel masculine just as there are things I need to feel feminine. And you know, of all the months I complained about men's meeting I never remember Clay complaining about my complaining. --- Thank you Babe for being long suffering and merciful to my lack of understanding.

Little Things that Help the Morale of the Troops

Homemade chocolate milk

Building a tent

Snuggling on the couch reading story after story

$3 markers and coloring WITH your kids

Dancing to music

Watering the flowers with little $1 water cans

Homemade popcorn and a movie together

$1 Side walk chalk

Bubbles, also a $1

Kashi cereal

Just lighting a candle for the dinner table

Painting little girl finger nails ( a personal favorite...)

Rolling a ball back and forth with your son

Visiting a thrift store and letting them play with the toys after you have looked around

An occasional french fry from Chik Fil A

Hugs and kisses

Ellie Speaks

Ellie: "Mom, I was just reading some verses."
Me: "What verses?"
Ellie: "The one where God made Earth, Mars, and Saturn. And the one where He made fairies."
(We have no idea where she heard about the different planets, and the fairies, we are working on that...as you will see.)



Ellie is really imaginative so sometimes we talk about things that are real and things that are pretend.
Me: "Let's talk about things that are pretend...like unicorns are pretend."
Ellie: "Right!"
Me: "And...fairies are pretend."
Ellie: "Yep!"
Me: "And...Hobbits are pretend."
Ellie: [With a very serious face.] "No Mom, Hobbits are real."

I'll be honest, I laughed out loud. She was so sure they were real...they do look real, just mini.

In the Zone

These are my couch potatoes. They were probably watching something amazing like Toy Story 3 for the first time. What is funny is Clay held that bite for her for awhile and didn't seem to notice, and neither did Ellie. :) I thought when I pulled the camera out they would snap out of their trance, but no. I was glad though. I love that Clay is so into the movie too. Sorry the picture looks so horrible it was dark so I had to bump the ISO way up.

Laura's Thought on Women's Work Undone

Flaring headlines in the papers have announced that "women will fight to hold jobs," meaning the men's jobs which they took when the men went to war. What to do about the situation seems to be a very important question. One would think that there must have been a great number of women who were idle before the war. If not, one wonders what has become of the jobs they had. To paraphrase a more or less popular song -- I Wonder Who's Holding Them Now?

With men by the thousands out of work and the unemployment situation growing so acute as to cause grave fears of attempted revolution, women by the hundreds are further complicating affairs by adding their numbers to the ranks of labor, employed, unemployed, or striking as the case may be.

We heard nothing of the numbers of women who could not find work before the war. They were all busy apparently and fairly well satisfied. Who is doing the work they left to fill the places of men who went into the army, or is that work undone?

It would be interesting to know, and it seems strange that while statistics are being prepared and investigations made of every subject under the sun, no one has compiled the records of "The Jobs Women Left or Women's Work Undone."

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Ouch.

Not sure what happen to cause pain to the head but glad we got a picture of him wearing the cardigan Aunt Abbey gave him.