Turbulence

I'm in Nashville, and we had the wonderful privilege of flying. (And for all of you jokesters out there - No, my arms aren't tired - we flew on an airplane.)

Anyway, it was an interesting flight. And quite a turbulent one to boot. Add a screaming toddler a few rows back, and it became an adventure.

Let's just say that when the flight attendant gets on her little speaker thingy (RUNS to her speaker thingy is a better choice of words) and says, "All right everyone, the captain has illuminated the fasten seat belt sign, and you'd better make sure it's tight!" You should know at that point, that it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Now, we've had lots of practice with turbulence. Landing anywhere in Alaska proves to be turbulent, no matter where you are going in the beautiful state - and that's on the big planes. We had to fly on a 1939 WWII Grumman Goose to get to the island we lived on for a couple of years. Now THAT was turbulence.

Today reminded me of that turbulence, only we were in a large plane. There were several people who gasped, even squealed, when we dropped who knows how many feet. (And on a sidenote - When your rear end no longer touches the seat below you, you know it's a substantial drop.)

Don't forget the screaming toddler. This child screamed almost the entire trip. Now, I'm going to get up on my soapbox here -- children need training. Training takes consistency, discipline, and patience. Flying on an airplane can be scary, it can be no fun when your ears don't pop, and add in the crazy turbulence - it can be downright miserable. This parent was not doing anything to help the child. The parent wasn't even trying. That's the part that is disheartening.

Note: I am NOT saying that screaming children are horrible. And I'm not saying that if your child screams, you are a terrible parent. I love kids. I have worked with kids of different abilities for a long time, and my own children are precious. But this particular child needed help - he needed to be prepared for the journey.

You're probably wondering where I'm headed - well, most of you know that I do a lot of speaking. And most of it has to do with parenting and our story. I'm also in the process of writing a "personal parenting encouragement" book. Why? Because I've been asked by so many people to do it. Not from an expert (because I am NOT one), but from an ordinary mom with an unusual story.

Life is not easy. Parenting is REALLY not easy. But - you can do it. A child will face a lot of "turbulence" in life, and if he is untrained and unprepared, he will kick, scream and whine his way through.

These are tough questions, but these are only on the surface - they're not the truly tough questions. In today's society - morals and respect and common courtesy are a rare find. Selfishness and pride seem to reign supreme, and it scares me to think where that will lead.

Are you prepared for turbulence? Are you preparing and training your children for turbulence?
I'd like you to go look up James 1:2-4 (yes, again) - and read the first chapter of I Peter. Look specifically at what it says about trials and joy.

We'll pick up here in a few days... Look for "Turbulence... Continued"
God Bless You All and I'm praying for you...

How Many Pages? A New Contest!

Once again, my children amaze me.

We just finished another quarter of school, and as I tally up grades and prepare report cards, I also add up our reading lists. We each keep a list of the books we have read - author, title, number of pages.

They have each read thousands of pages in a single quarter. My daughter, has read 20,874.

Did you catch that? Twenty Thousand, Eight Hundred and Seventy Four. One hundred and eight books. In ONE quarter. That's not a quarter of a year - it's a quarter of a school year.

So, I decided to come up with a challenge for all of my readers. For one year, I'd like everyone to keep track of the books they read. Write down the title of the book, the author, and how many pages. If you read picture books to your kids, write those down too! All those pages count.

I'm going to gather up some really great prizes. I have many author friends and I'm sure we can come up with a LOT.

In the coming weeks and months - I will check on everyone - and announce prizes. Keep checking the website and blog for more information.

There will be more than one winner. A winner for the most books read (hint, hint- if you're reading short books to your kids, they will add up REALLY fast,) A winner for most pages read, etc.

Hey, even if this inspires you to read the cereal box, it's a start.

So, get to reading - and no, Kayla will not be allowed to enter, but we should all strive to keep up with her! :)

On your mark, get set, READ!

WE HAVE A WINNER - and an HONORABLE MENTION!

Congratulations to Laura - with her guess of Woodkaylakimjoshjemy - It is the closest to the name of the tumanhofer in DragonLight! (Ha! You thought I was going to tell you the name, didn't you? You will just have to read the books - and boy, are they worth it!)

And a round of applause for Leila - our honorable mention - who also wins a great prize - because her guesses were so stinking creative! One of my favorites is: Kimberlashuamy

DragonLight releases tomorrow: June 17, 2008! So be sure to pick up your copy.

I have emailed these great ladies, and thanks to all of you who participated. We had over 650 guesses overall - and it was quite the challenge keeping up with all of you creative people!

Be watching for future book giveaways!

And read, read, read.

You guys are so much fun!

DragonLight Contest - LAST CHANCE!!!

My wonderful readers,

We've had 584 guesses for the name of the tumanhofer in DRAGONLIGHT named after our family.

This is your last chance to guess before I award the prize tomorrow!

Remember, whoever is the closest to the actual name will win.

Comment or email me through this site to guess. I will accept guesses until midnight tomorrow.

If you want more info - go through the archives and find the other posts about our contest and the prizes.

You all are awesome, and it has been fun. But Donita K. Paul's books are even "funner."

Can't wait to see the rest of your guesses!
Happy Reading!

Ewwwww! You Can't Be Serious... Oh Yes, I Can!

Allrighty, most of you know at least part of our story, and the fact that we were chosen for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Two men - had to put up with a lot through this whole adventure: John Unzueta and Jeff Morrell. They are our realtors.

One part you don't know - I'm about to tell you. And let me prepare you: It's not pretty.

Our house was for sale - for a LONG time. We didn't know why - it was brand new, beautiful, and had a ton of showings - but God knew what would happen, thankfully, He's in control and not Kim.

Finally, an offer came in and we realized we needed to find a place to live - and quick! We had discovered that the only thing we could afford in this pricey land of real estate, were homes that were foreclosed - so we tried to jump on those as quickly as we could. (We lost numerous ones the day they were listed.)

My husband, Jeremy, was particularly excited about one, (it was dirt cheap and relatively new,) and so we went to look at it. I discovered early on that it was not normally a good idea to bring the children into these foreclosed homes, (you never knew what the inside would look like,) so the children stayed safely locked in the car. Let me digress for a moment, I don't know if you know this about me yet, but I tend to be a little "anal" (that's Jeremy's word- LOL) and could be OCD if I really wanted to be. :) I like things clean, do not like bugs, and especially do not like rodents. :)

Before I continue, you need to have a good picture in your mind. Our realtors are great guys and were helping us every chance they had - anyway, John, had just come from showing a 1.5 million dollar home to someone else. He was nicely dressed. My husband and I were nicely dressed. The home was... dirty. Mild understatement.

Okay - SO - we are in this house and I am walking around with my hands in the air like I had just painted my fingernails and didn't want to touch anything - saying, "Ewww" a lot. But in my defense, I did see the potential of the house once cleaned. This is where you need a good imagination.

John, (the nicely dressed realtor,) came out of the bathroom with a very serious face, "I'm sorry.... he didn't make it."

Fear would adequately describe my feelings at that moment. "Who... didn't make it?"

John started to laugh and told me there was a dead mouse in the toilet. (Let's just say that he had a good grip on my personality by this point in time. He knew I would freak if I saw it, so he was trying to keep me laughing.)

I began to do the little girly dance that most of us of the female gender do when a mouse is even mentioned. I asked him to get rid of it, "can't you flush it?"

"Um, no. It's frozen in a block of ice." More laughter.

Upon exiting that house, I'm pretty sure we used an entire package of antibacterial wipes. All of us. And we laughed, for a long time. (Okay, so the guys were laughing at me, but it was funny.)

I'm sure John and Jeff both have their share of stories from our crazy real estate adventures, but at least we had a good ending. :) And whether they like it or not, they'll always remember us.

Needless to say, I was not upset when informed that we didn't get that house. I called a friend that afternoon and she said, "It's okay - you would've never been able to use the restroom in that house anyway."

So there you have it. The "dead-frozen-mouse-in-the-toilet-house" story.

Ewwww!