Don't Be Fooled by the Blue

After nearly fifteen years of service, my alarm clock broke and needed to be replaced.  I stood in the store eyeing two models.  One had a digital display that glowed red.  The other had a digital display that glowed blue.

 

Between the two options, the blue display seemed so soothing, so calming, so appropriate for a setting that's specifically designed for sleep.

 

My decision was settled.  I bought the clock with the blue display, took it home, opened the box, threw away the packaging, and plugged it in. 

 

Just right.

 

Just right, that is, until nighttime when I turned off the lights.  The blue display, so mellow during the afternoon, morphed into an inhumanely bright glare that illuminated the bedroom walls and seared through my shut eyelids with a center-of-the-sun intensity.

Part of my bedtime routine now involves strategically covering the alarm clock with a pillow.  My husband shakes his head at this, but gosh, I threw away the packaging on trash day so it can't be returned.  Looking on the bright side (literally and figuratively), besides from the fact that it hinders sleep with its obnoxious blaze and will require me to cover it with a pillow every night for the next fifteen years, it's a perfectly good alarm clock.

Just in case you're on the market for new clock, though, remember the adage about how the hottest flame burns blue.  The same goes for alarm clocks.

Here's to the Dads

Here's to the dads who catch little bodies as they plummet down sliding boards. To the dads who coach soccer practices and help with math homework and get kids riled up by wrestling right before bedtime. To the dads who read story books and give piggy back rides and play tickle monster. To the dads who hug, pray, listen, and say I love you. To the dads who are present and protective.

Thank God for fathers, and thank God that He's a faithful Father to those who are fatherless.

Especially today, here's to the dads.

On the Road Again (and again...)

This morning, I stood in front of the calendar and wondered how two full weeks of June already have passed.  Since the semester ended in May, we've had birthdays and house projects and visitors and end-of-school festivities and a smattering of short road trips embedded between the typical days at home.

The inability to easily settle into a predictable routine seems to be the one predictable thing about summer.  It's like the last leg of a road trip when you're back on residential streets again, but accustomed to highway driving, you still find yourself moving faster than you ought to be. 

That being said, let me downshift and share some highlight from our recent travels because, my oh my, we've been places.

Three weekends ago we visited my family in Pittsburgh, where we discovered a park that still had one of the most amazing playground attractions ever created.  I don't know its official name, but my children called it the spinny-thingy.  My mother called it the merry-go-round.  My husband called it the concussion-maker.

It's as awesome as it is potentially dangerous, which, come to think if it, is precisely why it's awesome.  Flirting with danger in a controlled environment is the stuff of childhood.

The following weekend we attended a wedding in Williamsburg, Virginia, which took seven hours, two rest stops, and -- thankfully -- only one urgent toddler bathroom break in the weeds on the side of the highway to reach from our home in Pennsylvania.

The morning of the wedding, the girls put on their flower girl dresses, I fixed their hair, and we left the hotel at 9:30, which was plenty of time to arrive for the pre-ceremony pictures with the bride and bridesmaids at ten.

Or so we thought.

Unbeknownst to us, a bike race was scheduled on the two-lane road that led to the ceremony, and we found ourselves driving at an alarmingly slow pace in its wake.  Cars were ahead of us.  Cars were behind us.  There were no turn-offs.  Minutes were ticking by.

This is not good, my husband muttered, and a moment later he spotted a connecting road.  Without second-guessing, he pulled onto it and announced, I'm trying something. 

I'm not entirely sure how it happened -- I think it had something to do with God bending time and space and street intersections on our behalf -- but we arrived at the designated location at 10:15.  My husband dropped us off in the parking lot, I hastily waved goodbye, and we rushed into the house exactly as the bride was exiting her room.

Of course, I acted entirely casual and collected, like we had been there all along.

I was slightly less collected when we moved outside for pictures and my five-year-old walked underneath a tree, unknowingly trampled berries that had fallen onto the ground, and then accidentally stepped on the front of her own dress, staining it with purple berry juice.  (If this ever happens to you, do not question, as I did, how a child can walk on the very dress that she is wearing.  The child will have no logical explanation to offer.  Your efforts will be better searching for a Tide to Go pen, which will work miracles.)

After the photographer had finsished and the bride and bridesmaids got into their cars to drive to the ceremony, I realized one final glitch: in our haste to get the pictures, my husband had dropped us off and driven to the ceremony by himself.  Without us.

And that's how three flower girls and their mother end up hitching a ride to a wedding ceremony in the back of the photographer's pick-up truck. 

During the ceremony, Reese maturely carried her bouquet, Brooke and Kerrington dutifully followed with the Here Comes the Bride sign, the bride glowed, the groom pumped his fist in the air after the official kiss, and I sat back in my chair to soak it all in, one very thankful woman.

Earlier this week our travels continued when my husband scored a great deal on two tickets to a practice round of the US Open.  After arranging childcare for the day, we woke at an ungodly hour on Monday and drove to Philadelphia, where we spent the morning and early afternoon walking the eighteen holes of Merion Golf Course in the rain. 

What can I say?  My husband loves golf.  I love my husband.  It turned out to be an unconventional, but long-awaited and greatly-enjoyed, date for us, despite the overzealous precipitation.

Just yesterday I found myself on the road again, this time to Delaware with a heavy heart, to attend the funeral of the father of a dear student in our campus fellowship who passed away unexpectedly. 

Last night when my head hit the pillow, I felt sad and worn down from the day's events, and perhaps the cumulative miles.  The sore throat that I had attempted to ignore all day had erupted into a tight cough and my thoughts raced unproductively, as they tend to do when you've been drinking caffeine all afternoon to stay alert while driving.  I finally chugged a dose of NyQuil and waited for the caffeine and cold medicine to duke it out in my system until sleepiness prevailed.

Today, I spent the day with the girls, holding them a little more tightly, hanging a little closer to home, and consciously slowing down.  Some days there should be no rushing at all.

Our travels, at least for this week, are over.  There's no better time to be grateful for home.
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Looking for a good read for the upcoming summer? Check out Then I Became a Mother on Amazon. Available in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Over at MOPS Mom-E-Mail Today

If you're visiting from MOPS Mom-E-Mail -- welcome!  I'm a mom of three young kids, a teacher of college public speaking and writing courses, and a horrible fitted-sheet folder.  I appreciate order, structure, and time for reflection, which are three desires in diametric opposition with the reality of motherhood. 

Occasionally, I burst into spontaneous dance moves or a rather spectacular rendition of Livin' On a Prayer for no apparent reason, but my most defining characteristic -- the one which most deeply influences my actions, speech, and overarching life outlook -- is that I am a follower of Christ.  I love God.  He loved me first.  I get the better end of this deal, by far.

I'm so glad that you've joined me here at Pink Dryer Lint, where I write about embracing the ordinary moments of motherhood and life.  Like the bittersweet day when you dismantle your crib; or the moment when you realize that you're a woman who's trying to do it all; or the afternoon when your child drinks water from the public library's toilet; or the time when you come out of the grocery store, see a minivan in the parking lot with its side door wide open, figure that it belongs to some poor, tired mom with a handful of kids who probably forgot to shut the door or grab her little clutch of mostly-expired coupons, and then stop to realize, Hey, that's my van....

Please feel free to explore the site, hang out with me on Facebook, or subscribe to my posts via email (see the box in the right margin).

Enjoy, and thank you for visiting!
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Looking for a good read for the upcoming summer? Check out Then I Became a Mother on Amazon.  Available in both paperback and Kindle editions.  (Kindle edition for just $2.99!)

Time Prepping Is Not Wasted Time

My father, a retired school teacher, painted houses during the summer for nearly thirty years.  By watching him, I learned that the time you spend prepping a room is never wasted.

Each time I paint, like I did earlier this week, I unscrew the light switch plates and seal them in a plastic bag.  I cover the floor with drop cloths.  I protect the baseboards and trim with painter's tape.  I gather all the necessary supplies, and I keep a cloth rag and paper towels nearby in case of spills or drips.

Sometimes I want to bypass these preliminary steps and simply jump into the task.

As I painted, I thought about this desire to skip ahead.  (It distracted me from thinking about how frequently I couldn't recall whether I just painted a section or whether I still needed to paint it, much like when I can't remember if I washed my hair or just thought about washing my hair while in the shower.  Obviously, I'm battling short-term memory issues.)

At any rate, unlike actually painting, prepping a room doesn't yield immediate visible results.  In fact, at the onset, it slows you down.

There are many times when I'm tempted to cut corners and skip the prep, and not just while painting.  I want to shoo my kids aside in the kitchen so I can cook dinner unencumbered instead of parceling out whose turn it is to stir next.  I want to fasten their buttons or tie their laces quickly instead of laboriously teaching them how to do it themselves.  I want the end product of their good behavior even before I patiently instruct them on what that behavior should be.

In other words, I have days when I want my children to be freshly-painted finished products, days when I forget that this whole parenting experience is one long process of setting foundations and laying down enough drop cloths to catch spills along the way.

As I navigated around the room, toggling back and forth between edging with my brush and covering wide swatches with my roller, I made quick progress.  My thorough preparation at the onset, even if mundane, made the process smooth, the clean-up easy, and the end result successful.

Time prepping -- whether in painting or in parenting -- never is wasted time.
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Looking for a good read for the upcoming summer? Check out Then I Became a Mother on Amazon. Available in both Kindle and paperback editions!