I Should Be Doing Something Else Right Now

I only have a quick second.

There are a million something else's I should be doing right now.

Like vacuuming since there are 18 kids coming over for prom pictures Saturday.

I spent two days planting flowers for OUTDOOR pictures.

But the weatherman announced that while it's been beautiful and delightful all week 

it's all going to change on Saturday.

Rain.

Maybe even some thunderstorms .

I feel like I can't even talk in complete sentences anymore with all the to-do lists in my brain so I'm just going to communicate via bullet point.

• We got rid of our trampoline.

We have been planning to get rid of the trampoline since the fall. The girls just don't use it like they used to and it took up an enormous chunk of the yard.

We bought the trampoline years ago from friends who were moving to China.

We naturally thought it would be easy to find someone interested to buy it from us.

Monte took pictures and posted it to our street's Facebook page with an asking price.

No bites.

Monte posted it to some other type of buyer/seller type site and got some freaky responses and decided to immediately shut it down.

Monte works in a sales environment so he decided to work his talents and try to sell the trampoline to any and everyone he knew in the office.

No interest.

So he dropped the price to FREE to anyone who could move it.

Still no takers!

It took our daughter bouncing on a friend's trampoline while babysitting her Young Life leader's kids and seeing the joy in their eyes as they were jumping to suggest that we offer the trampoline to them.

So Monte did.

And they accepted!!

It took them no time to take it down.

I really wasn't sad to see it go until I told the new owner to be sure to tell his daughter to have sleepovers on it like our girls used to.

Just another punch in the gut that things are changing and that time is cruelly marching on--all over my heart and face and a few other places I'm not going to talk about here.

Monte has plans to build a fire pit in the area where the trampoline used to be.

In the meantime, I'm hoping the weatherman was wrong and we can squeeze 18 dressed up kids in front of the bushes for prom pictures.

• Disco balls rock

I bought a disco ball for McDaniel's surprise 18th birthday party. 

I will eventually post those pictures.

I read a blog post from The Nester a long time ago that she keeps a disco ball as home decor and at certain times of the day it lights up the whole room.

So after the party, I tossed the disco ball into a tray on an ottoman and forgot about it.

One afternoon I walked into this magic:

It really is the coolest thing each afternoon.

When it's sunny.

• I love this filter on Snapchat.

I don't know how Snapchat works and I don't quite understand why things disappear, but this filter CRACKS ME UP.

A toothier, big-eyed me is hilarious. I'm sorry. It just is.

I use it to help me stay awake when waiting on the girls to come home at night.

Monte and I have a little fun with it too.

I also used the filter in a video to let McDaniel know I wasn't happy she used my toothbrush as a shovel to remove the remainder of the coconut oil out of the jar.

I really do have to go now.

Enjoy!

I Have Seen the Lord!

It's the season of contemplation.

What we agree with.

What we believe in.

Who we agree with.

Who we believe in.

In one way or another, it's all contemplated.

As believers in Christ, we can over think it.

And by "it" I mean the whole thing.

We over intellectualize the sacrifice God made by giving up His only son for our forgiveness.

We make it about laws and rules and dates and times and commentaries and personal theories as we throw stones and fiery darts at anything that disagrees with us until we are so far from the heart of the matter that we don't even know what's the matter anymore.

And people certainly don't think of Christ 

when they see us coming.

In John 20:17-18 after Mary found the tomb empty and wept, Jesus revealed himself to her and told her to go tell the disciples.

"Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"

"Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news:  'I have seen the Lord' 

And she told them that he had said these things to her."

I have seen the Lord.

I have seen the Lord.

It's so incredibly simple.

Jesus didn't tell Mary to show off her knowledge of who He is.

Jesus didn't tell Mary to provide proof that she had in fact for real seen Him.

Jesus told her simply to go tell that she saw Him.

She was in His presence.

When Jesus preformed miracles he didn't ask them to research its validity, or their own worthiness of the healing, He simply told them to go tell others.

In a nutshell their healing became their,

"I have seen the Lord!"

I think if we think hard enough, we all have examples of situations where we can say, 

"I have seen the Lord."

Not literally the face of God.

Where's the faith in that?

Watching a loved one suffer from illness but still possess a joy and humor in their pain,

I have seen the Lord.

Seeing grace and peace that surpasses ALL understanding in someone who has every right in this world to be bitter and angry, 

I have seen the Lord.

Witnessing a newborn baby yawn,

I have seen the Lord.

Recovering from an addiction of any kind,

I have seen the Lord.

In a time when it's become more popular to be entertained at church than educated, 

easier to slam someone's theology on social media than talk to them face-to-face, 

trendy to be super extra careful not to offend an ever growing list,

we need to go back to John 20:18.

We need to tell someone the news,

"I have seen the Lord!"

Because it's filled with hope 

and love 

and forgiveness 

and faith.

It's personal yet for everyone who will just open their eyes to see.

Planet Earth 2

Have you seen any of the BBC's Planet Earth 2 series?

The series is broken down into segments, each episode takes on the animals of that particular segment even if they live across the globe from one another.

One episode was about islands.

We learned about the 3-toed sloth.

Oh my goodness.

This sloth was hanging out in a tree when he heard a mating cry.

The slowness in which he reacted is quite fast for his species according to the narrator, David Attenborough.

He's looking towards the mating call. 

David Attenborough has the type of soothing voice 

that could make Winnie the Pooh seem harsh.

And his brother played John Hammond 

in Jurassic Park!

Back to the sloth.

After hearing the mating call, the sloth jumped into the water and started swimming toward the cry.

I'm not sure why but this struck me funny.

I've never really had a reason to believe a sloth couldn't swim but I sure didn't expect him to look like a tourist on vacation rather than a sloth on a mission to find his soul mate.

He's doing the doggy paddle.

I didn't get the feeling that there was a great deal of urgency.

He got all the way across this inlet only to find out the mating call wasn't for him and he had to turn around and super casually swim back.

Womp womp.

It was like the Charlie Brown of sloths.

The scariest part of this episode was showing the perils of being a baby iguana.

They hatch on rocky beaches and must RUN AS FAST AS THEY CAN to the higher elevation of rocks by the water where their parents are waiting for them.

They must RUN because speed snakes are waiting and watching for them under rocks near by.

Yes. I said speed snakes.

These snakes are HUGE and they got their name honestly.

They are FAST!

I've never rooted for an iguana in my life like I did these newborns.

"GO! GO! GO!! 

DON'T LOOK BACK! 

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! 

DON'T. MOVE!"

My hands are sweating from watching that again.

Did you see that snake lunge at the baby iguana with his MOUTH OPEN in a last ditch effort to stop him?!

Isn't that just like the devil to try to WIDE-MOUTH bite us 

when we are two steps from freedom? 

We went to the Florida Keys for spring break.

It's much more tropical than south Florida.

In fact, the girls kept asking us if we were still in America.

At the pool of our hotel, there was a waterfall spilling over rocks into the pool so that guests could walk under it.

Iguanas were ALL over the rocks.

They were fascinating to watch!

I was an instant fan 
because… Planet Earth 2.

Sometimes, in the morning, we'd see 3 or 4 iguanas squeeze out of holes in the rocks where they had slept overnight.

I can only imagine how cozy
those accommodations were.

The iguanas became our live version of Planet Earth 2.

Except, THANK THE LORD, there were no speed snakes around. 

I would've run the entire way back to Ohio 

if I'd caught even a glimpse of a speed snake 

eyeballing one of my iguanas.

They became our entertainment.

From a distance.

One did come down to the pool deck and sniffed around a few sunbathers.

I preferred them at a distance.

I couldn't believe how dinosaur-like they seemed.

Slap on a back fin and they would resemble a baby Dimetrodon.

SOURCE

There was always a "changing of the guard" of who got the highest rock. They'd raise their head high up towards the sun and close their eyes. They'd remain still, in the same position, for long stretches of time.

Around day 3 of watching my iguanas, I determined Monte had lots of similar characteristics.

He agreed.

I just happened to be videoing my iguanas when I caught this interesting behavior:

After doing some research, I found out that the thingy-do under the iguana's neck is called a dewlap. Males puff it out for any number of reasons:  territorial, temperature regulation, greeting, warning or 

"Hey, female iguana, you are kind of cute."

Who knows what was happening in the mind of that iguana on that particular day and that particular rock.

Our research also informed us of why we saw so many hawks circling the pool.

They fly off with the iguanas!!

I was sharing this upsetting revelation with Monte and how APPALLED I would've been if we'd actually WITNESSED the iguana snatching when he glazed over a bit and said,

"That would've been awesome!"

After doing some research, I found out that the doohickey under the iguanas neck is actually called a dewlap.

Males puff out their dewlap for any number of reasons:  territorial, temperature regulation, warning or just a,

"Hey, how you doin'?" 

to any females nearby.

Our research also informed us of why we saw so many hawks circling the pool area.

THEY FLY OFF WITH THE IGUANAS!

I was sharing this upsetting revelation with Monte and emotionally expressing HOW APPALLED I'd be if we'd actually witnessed an iguana snatching when Monte glazed over a bit and said, 

"That would've been AWESOME!"

I blame Planet Earth 2.