She likes me...she really likes me

I've waxed philosophically, frustratedly, resignedly about our less than energetic house mutt, Shelby, in previous posts here, and here, and here.

I've not hidden the fact that there is no great love lost between the two of us. Well, perhaps I should say I possess no great love for her. A great tolerance. A mild like. I don't know how she feels about me.

Until now.

My gaggle of women inform me that Shelby really does like me. She respects me. She views me as the Alpha dog.

I don't really buy it. The only times I've ever seen her be the least bit inventive is when she thinks she might get some sort of human food. The only times she ever seems like she values us is when she wants to be pet (and no matter how long we pet her, it's always several minutes short of filling her need-to-be-touched tank, and several minutes past my I've-got-affection-to-give wellspring), or when we come home after being away for a few hours and she barks until we'd rather hear anything, even Taylor Swift singing without auto tune at the Grammys, if she'd only shut up.

Here she is at her attentive best. Why? Because she smells popcorn and she knows that my soft-hearted wife will graciously "drop" a few kernels her way.

Like I said, food is the only thing that lights her intellectual fire. Or maybe it's her instinctual fire.

They tell me I need to be kinder to her, because she really does like me, as these photos "prove" according to them.Maybe so. I just can't make the effort to channel my kindler gentler self towards a dog whose primary goals seems to be (1) to emulate a cat [sleeping 22-23 hours per day; only coming to us for food and affection] (2) sounding the incessant bark alarm when the doorbell rings, as if we're deaf to its sound [and, it must be noted, she offers nary a peep if someone simply walks into the house. She only feels called to alert us to those who warn us with the doorbell; unannounced intruders are merely sniffed.] and (3) whining at us on random days in the wee hours of the morning for no apparent reason. [Even my never-endingly patient wife is about done with that little trick.]

Does she like me, really like me. Probably.

And I tolerate her, really tolerate her.

Artsy children

There are a lot of things I really miss about my kids when they were younger. Being able to cuddle them in my arms. Them believing every tall tale I make up. Having a conversation with someone who can't say their Rs or Ls. Chocolate faces after chocolate ice cream.

Of course, there are some things I don't miss. Like being awakened every night at some ungodly hour for 9 months straight...or more.

There are some real advantages to having teen and pre-teen daughters. Laughing, a LOT, at the dinner table. Prevention, forceful vocal prevention, of me leaving the house dressed in any sort of fashion "don't." Insightful conversations about books and movies. The ability to leave at any time for a date with my sexy wife and not arrange baby sitting. (I really love that one.)

And, most recently brought to my attention: our girls can gather the supplies for, create on their own, and clean up the remnants of, their own arts and crafts projects.

Recently, whilst their mother and I were engaged in a room makeover for Emily, our three progeny took it upon themselves to pull out an unused art project they'd been meaning to do.They gathered the paints and brushes.They spread out the cheap vinyl table cloth to prevent messes from migrating to unintentional areas.They chose their color scheme and began to create.And, unknown to us, they created some colorful, festive snowflakes,took pictures of it all to prove it, and cleaned it all up before we even knew it had begun.

I'm loving this.

And, Karen and I got some uninterrupted home improvement project work time.

By the way, here's the end product of Emily's room makeover, including my first ever chair rail installation.We still need to put up some window treatment, but it's close.

While I do miss those wee little ones we had back in the 90s, I'm really grateful for the ones they grew into.They're all pretty fantastic.

Jenna's hair loss

No, she's not going bald.

As you've probably noticed from previous posts, Jenna's hair is decently long. About shoulder length or so. Long enough to put a pony or two in.

In fact, just a few days ago, Jenna had Anya play around with her hair. This is what she came up with.Turns out it was the last long-hair style she'll have for a while.

Because yesterday, Friday March 19, Jenna entered pixie land. The doorway to this pixie world was the stylist chair at Salon Graffiti. The worker of magic, our wonderful hair stylist and friend, Brianne.

Before...During...After...She loves it. Brianne loves it. We love it.

Fabulous.

90 Days Through The Bible

Karen and I, along with several people from church, have embarked on a quest to read through the entire Bible in 90 days. Think the intensity of those ubiquitous P90X workout infomercials, only taking that intensity to scripture reading instead of a body workout.

We'll call it B90X.
[Yes, this book really exists. I don't own it. Just saw it online. Gotta love those Christian marketers!]

It's a fascinating journey, and we're a little over halfway through the Old Testament. When you're reading 12 pages of the Bible a day, everyday, you don't have time to stop and dwell on a passage and try to apply it to your life; you can't decide to camp out in a chapter and dissect the sentence structure, or cross reference the other occurrences of a specific word, or look up the meaning of an obscure phrase in the Hebrew text.

What you can do is try to absorb a massive narrative that spans thousands of years, consume large amounts of poetic writing, and look at a book, or even books, in context to each other, not just look at the context of a verse to the surrounding verses.

It's caused me to look at God differently (yet another paradigm shift in my relationship with Him) and especially to think of His Word differently. I have a greater sense of the arc of God's involvement through history, both within and without Israel. I've noticed the difference in writing styles between books, the different leadership styles of various figures, even the varied focus of sections of the Psalms.

And simply consuming this much scripture daily means that I think about the Bible, and about God, both more and in new ways than I have before.

It's a daunting task. So daunting that I almost didn't commit to doing it. I mean, really, 12 pages with little print every day? You know that there will be a period when all we're reading is the prophets for days on end? You really want to sign up for that?

But I did. And some days are harder than others. I am convinced that God never intended anyone to read through the book of Proverbs in two days. Mind-numbing. There's great stuff there, in small doses. In one big chunk, at times it's like Confucious threw up on me. "Please, someone just clean me up so I can move on..."

Even with that, I highly recommend that you try this exercise. I'm sure it will change the way you think of God (and not always in comforting, precious-moment kinds of ways) and will inspire you unexpectedly.

I'd also recommend you read one chapter of Proverbs a day for the first 31 days after your other pages.

If not, at the very least, drink a LOT of coffee on your two day Proverbs binge.

Albino Cow Patties

It's lovely having 3 girls who are old enough to help out around the house. They put their able bodies to such tasks as cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming and doing the dishes. And when they do the dishes, that also means putting away leftovers from the delicious meal.

Unfortunately, sometimes things don't go smoothly.Sometimes, the fantastic leftover mashed red potatoes go from the container they were put in for storage [but not yet lidded] directly to a less convenient location.

Like the floor.
And then look like a cow patty left by an albino cow.
Yum.