a little over a year ago, i wrote this post about Shrove Tuesday, or the Beginning Of Lent. It was written on February 8th - almost three weeks earlier than this year. today is Shrove Tuesday and we decided to join the masses in the parish hall to eat pancakes and sausage.

and so here we are in Lent again. i recently read this description of Lent, which i like:

"Lent is a time of discipline and preparation. Lenten disciplines are those which we undertake for a journey. Lent has been likened to a journey, with our ears attuned and our bodies leaning toward the wonder of the Easter announcement: Christ is risen!"

the housegroup that kenny and i belong to (which rocks, by the way) has taken a break from regularly scheduled programming to discuss the desires that the majority of us have in keeping a Lenten discipline (and holding to it even after Lent, and throughout the year). some of us are gathering for an early morning read-through of morning prayer. some are meeting on fridays for a time of more Book of Common Prayer reading. some are meeting for dinner to discuss how the week of disciplining is going (getting up extra early when it's cold outside, and fasting through lunch once a week is not easy).

i decided last week to do something a little different this year. i'm baking bread as a Lenten discipline (this is news to kenny and I'm sure he's not upset about this decision). i know it sounds silly that someone who enjoys making bread - the mixing and (especially) the kneading and the rising and the baking of it all - has chosen it for a Lenten discipline. i may like it, but it's hard to do it on a regular, weekly, basis for me. i'm not too spry on my toes anymore (thanks to the in-utero son), and i prefer sleep over baking these days. and my ex-utero sons take up the remainder of my spare time. but while i was kneading a recipe for 4 loaves of white bread last weekend (which didn't turn out so well), i realized that there is something to this "art of bread-baking" that can put you into a meditative state. my mind was working a hundred miles an hour while i kneaded (and kneaded and kneaded) this large amount of dough, and i realized that i could use this time for prayer and meditation. two things which are sadly missing from my day-to-day life. if i commit to make bread even two times a week, that's two times (more than usual) during the week that i can't do anything else but knead/think/pray.

i plan to give most of the bread away. that adds to the discipline part. however, i think that giving it away can include giving it to husband and children and not eating it myself.

it's not a midlife crisis i'm going through. i'm actually enjoying my 30s a lot and from what i can see and hear from friends in their 40s, 50s, and even 60s, it's only going to get better. but what i'm really excited about (and this is what makes kenny wonder if i'm going a little crazy some days) is the retirement village we will one day move into together.

i know. we haven't even moved into our "family home" yet (we're trying, i promise!) and i'm already looking forward to selling it and spending kenny's well-earned 401K on our retirement dwelling.

but you see, i already have our "place" picked out. The Village of St. Barnabas will be our blissful living quarters for our "twilight years."

i'll be the first to admit it's because of their commercials. If you live in or around the pittsburgh area, you're bound to have seen these commercials: two or four retirees in their best leisure suits talking about how great (and safe!) their new, beautiful apartments are. i love the one of the two men sitting in the cafe talking over cups of coffee about how great it is that they have time to read the sports page instead of mow their lawn. or the one with the two couples talking excitedly about seeing Shirley Jones at the new state-of-the-art Kean theatre located right on campus. the latest commercial shows one of the two (ubiquitous to the commercials) couples on a putting green and i couldn't wait to tell kenny that it had its own putting green. it didn't excite him in the least.

it's not that i am sick of my work, or that i can't wait until my kids are old and grown. in fact, that's what i'm NOT looking forward to. but i'm so excited to be living on "a campus" again - just like in college. i can't wait to have a weekly hair appointment, and power-walk the hallways with my lady friends while kenny reviews the sports page over a cup of coffee with his buddies (okay, he might play golf, but he's never going to be one to read the sports page). i look forward to sharing my meals with our friends (the food is probably delicious at St. Barnabas...it is the next home we'll have to heaven, so it has to be close to heaven-like, right?).

i suspect that our grandchildren will be starting their own families when we are set to move into our deluxe three-bedroom, 1384 square foot McCready apartment. when they come to visit us, they'll be blown away at the luxury living we'll be enjoying that they'll want to follow in our footsteps, i'm sure.

i wonder when i should think about putting our name on the waiting list?

it's 9:00 p.m. on a frigid tuesday night and i just sent my husband out to the grocery store to buy two half pints of Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream.

it's 2 for $5.00 right now, i'm pregnant, and we were going to have a date night tonight, but our sitter cancelled.

so we deserve it. :)

there really is no other crayon than the CRAYOLA. spend the extra buck or two. don't waste your time or your children's frustration on dollar store crayons, store-brand crayons, or crayons given to you in restaurants by well-meaning hostesses. there just isn't anything like the CRAYOLA crayon.

this is one of those "lessons learned" that i will now give on my advice card at future baby showers. forget the, "don't forget about your husband!" or "don't forget about "me-time". future moms MUST know, before having the baby, that they should never buy anything but the CRAYOLA crayon.

otherwise, it's just a crumbly, waxy mess all over the table.

now don't get me started on generic playdough....

[pic(pics/feb_06/winner_committee.JPG)]
from left to right....me (it's not a bow, they're my glasses), my mom, lauren, jill, liza, maria

Lauren Winner, author of Girl Meets God, Mudhouse Sabbath (my favorite), and Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity spent the weekend in Pittsburgh holding a writer's conference and women's retreat at my church.

I was honored to not only attend, but be a part of the "behind the scenes" of the weekend. This role allowed me, along with the above pictured women, a chat over a glass of wine (or cranberry and soda) and spinach dip with Lauren following the retreat.

I could write in great detail about the workshop and retreat in a lengthy entry, but instead I'll just say how great it was to see that she is as real in person as she is in her writing. She can be profound, funny, and can address an awkward audience question about the place of the female midriff in the American church in one whirlwind of a weekend.

Now go read her books.

I have several. But this one is more rational than the others because it's more likely to happen. And...it did (to an extent)!

I recently had to go to the dentist to get a tooth pulled. I actually went into the dentist this past fall with a sore tooth. They wouldn't x-ray me since I was 6 weeks pregnant - a tricky time to introduce radiation into your body. I agreed and made another apointment for an x-ray to be taken 6 weeks later. I went back to the dentist around 14 weeks pregnant (after Thanksgiving) and they x-rayed and found a little infection underneath one of my molars. Great. Infection in your gums while pregnant is not something you want to have.

The dentist sent me to a specialist which was a TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY. He saw me for 10 minutes, dug around in my gum (yes, it hurt) and told me he could do surgery (2 1/2 hours long and $2500) or do some corrective root canal work (1 1/2 hours and $1200). I asked him if we could just pull the tooth. He said, "Yes, but I don't pull teeth. You have to go to a regular oral surgeon for that."

Make yet another appointment for two weeks ago (they don't think that being pregnant with a gum infection is that much of an emergency, so I had to wait 3 weeks for the appointment). I finally get to the dentist's office and the dentist looks at my 2 month old xray asking me why I hadn't had this taken care of when the xray was taken. Argh.

Here's where the nightmare begins: He tells me, "Since you are pregnant, I can only use 3/4 strength novocaine on you, so I can't promise you this isn't going to hurt." I looked at him as though he had two heads and about jumped out of the chair. But he also explained that if I wait longer to have this done, the infection could be worse, antibiotics wouldn't take care of it, and the novocaine wouldn't be strong enough even then. So I hunkered down and let him shoot up my gum with his weak version of pain killers that I often welcome in the dentist's chair (I also welcome laughing gas and perhaps IV sedation, but that definitely isn't happening when I'm pregnant).

After waiting 25 minutes for the novocaine to kick in (I swear it was already wearing off), the denist comes back in and he begins his work. It took 10 seconds and I didn't feel a thing. The 25 minutes of anticipation was the worst part - worse even than the needle to numb my gums. What is up with dentists that like to scare little ol' pregnant ladies like me???

This is the time where I feel sorry for Steeler fans who live in cities other than Pittsburgh.

The Steelers won the Superbowl (in another nailbiter) and as soon as that clock ran out, the fireworks and car horns starting going all over. Even in our little neighborhood we hear the craziness. Of course, the local news is back to 24/7 coverage of the crazy fans all over the streets of Oakland, The Strip District, Station Square, and Downtown.

I just got off the phone with my brother, Jonathan in Grand Rapids, and he asked, "Do you hear car horns yet?" Who wouldn't want to be in Pittsburgh right now?!?!?!

Kenny and his brother Wayne in Seattle had a good-natured bet. The original bet (which I and Wayne's wife nixed right away) was the loser would have to grow and wear the mustache of the opposing team's head coach (Kenny would have Holmgren's'stache and Wayne would have Cowher's 'stache) for a week. Since we vetoed it, the new bet is that Wayne will now have hang the terrible towel in his office for a week. It's minor, but if Kenny would have to wear anything with the Seahawks' emblem on it, I'd fear for his life in the streets of Oakland.

Pittsburgh will never say, "One for the Thumb" after this year. Pittsburgh will never talk only about the glory days of the 70s after this year. We finally have a new year to talk about.

pittsburgh has 5 local stations all with news programs. all of these stations have sent at least 450 of their most popular news anchors to cover the superbowl in detroit. do the math, and that gives us about 5,687 news anchors in detroit (since LAST week) to cover such riveting stories such as (this is only a partial list):

- steelers hold pep rally in pittsburgh 13 hours before they leave for detroit
- steelers sleep in their home beds one last night before leaving for detroit
(1.30 minutes for local weather)
- steelers board plane in pittsburgh
- (LIVE FROM DETROIT) steelers land in detroit
- (LIVE FROM DETROIT) steelers board bus at detroit airport heading to their hotel
- (LIVE FROM THE HYATT) steelers bus arrives at Hyatt hotel
- steelers have dinner at jerome bettis' mother's home
- steelers eat a lot for dinner
- (GASP! WE'RE DOOMED! )Troy Polomolu twists ankle in practice!
- local pittsburgher mortgages home for steeler tickets
- (WHEW!) Troy's ankle just fine. He will play Sunday
- (OH NO! WE'RE DOOMED!) Hines Ward's shoulder is sore!
- local giant eagle check out lady wears black and gold from head to toe 24/7
(30 seconds for local weather)
- (WHEW!) Hines' should just fine. He will play Sunday.
- steelers hold press conference
- local pittsburghers eat the same food every game day so they don't "jinx" the outcome of the game
- pittsburgh mayor boards plane friday night to detroit to cheer on the steelers

obviously, there is nothing else going on in pittsburgh that is news-worthy. nothing. the "drive for five" or "one for the thumb" or "gimme 5" stories have taken over.

PS. Go Steelers!

It all started at 12:18 a.m. Tuesday morning....

Rowan wakes up crying, which is extremely rare, and walks out of his room. I get him and notice that he has vomitted. *Sigh.* It sucks to watch your child throw up because there is nothing you can do to stop it and you know it's going to make him feel better, but you also know that it sucks to throw up. This lasted until around 4:00 when his stomach finally settled and he fell asleep until 7:00, sleeping horizontally between Kenny and me.

Tuesday was slightly better. Rowan was acting fine, but had a low-grade fever with some diarrhea (is there a harder English word to spell?). But he wasn't acting ill. I still canceled my plans as I didn't want to spread what he could have still been carrying.

Wednesday morning, Rowan wakes earlier than usual and still acts tired. He throws up one more time, so again, I cancel my plans for the day. He needs to rest up. At about 9:30, Kenny decides to work from home since he is feeling a bit sick. By 10:45, he's living in the bathroom. Fortunately, Rowan is feeling better, and I'm praying that this virus doesn't reach Sawyer or me.

Kenny spends the rest of the day going back and forth between the bathroom and bed and I put the boys down for their naps. Sawyer wakes up at 3:00 throwing up. He continues to throw up every 5-10 minutes for about 2 hours. I decide I need my mommy. :)

Kenny is still really sick, Rowan is demanding pancakes, and Sawyer is throwing up constantly. I called my mom who showed up with pancakes and a bunch of other groceries and stayed with me until I felt Sawyer was at least okay (by this time, he was dry-heaving and throwing up bile). I called my friend Amy who is a pediatrician because our pediatrician's office was closed for the day and she reassured me that I was doing everything right to keep Sawyer from getting dehydrated.

Mom left around 6:45, and I began bedtime for the boys who were really tired.

By 9:30 that night, I was as sick as Kenny was earlier. I even threw up (my friends who are reading this will be surprised at this because I just don't throw up. I did a few times when I was pregnant or (sorry, Dad) a bit tipsy, but never from illness). This continued throughout the night, and Kenny, who still wasn't feeling better, had to intervene when Sawyer woke up at 11:30 (and he gave him ice chips and a few teaspoons of water) and stayed up for about an hour. By morning, we were beat. But the boys woke up in good moods.

All day, we tried so hard to keep the boys from at least hurting themselves or each other, while we vegged on the floor or the living room couch. We let them get away with everything else in the book (they watched tv all day long - but Nana supplied us with 2 new kids DVDs). We were all in bed with the lights out by 7:00 pm. last night.

Today we're walking in a daze - tired, but so happy to be feeling better. This virus was pure evil.

I am beginning the process of cloroxing every room in our house.