Movie Night

Fire crackling
Dog snoring
Popcorn popping
Children giggling
Blankets rustling
Slumber party

Our Friday night movie night has become quite the tradition. We have a guest with our family this weekend, and after our movie last night, he said, “I wish I could just sleep right here.” The kids all piped up. “We can! It’s so awesome! Every Friday night we get to sleep here. But we only get to do it on Fridays.”

Last night we watched “The Blue Butterfly” (with language editing – which apparently was a good idea). I’ve become a bit famous for renting the very much lesser known movies out there. The kids usually groan when I tell them that this week’s movie is about a butterfly, or a dog, or a horse, or a bee, etc. But they’ve never been disappointed – well, except the week I somehow accidentally got a 12 minute movie! They like to bring that up. But almost every week, they love it. So occasionally we get the big , new blockbuster (I believe Beverly Hills Chihuahua is coming next week), but mostly we get something no one has heard of.

There is nothing worse than standing in a video store trying to figure out what to rent – or worse, taking your kids in the video store to see all the horrible images on the shelves while your hunting for something worthwhile. Then there is the $4 per movie rental and the time and the gas, etc. So with a little trial and error, we’ve found a pretty good method to this.

So here’s my plan:
1. We get the CBD catalogue in the mail (but you can probably get an idea on line, too). I look through their movie section (hoping they will be movies with good values and no immorality if they are found in a Christian magazine).
2. We have a Netflix account. No driving. No video stores. $8 a month (or close) for as many movies as we can mail back and forth.
3. I log into Netflix and search for the movies advertised at CBD, read their descriptions, ratings, etc. Then reserve.
4. Netflix will often recommend other movies that are similar, so I follow the rabbit trail and fill our queue with 10-12 movies at a time. You can change the order any time you want. Then they just come! They show up on Wednesday or Thursday. We watch them on Friday night. Mail them back on Monday (‘cause usually the kids fall asleep before the whole movie finishes, so they can re-watch parts over the weekend). The new ones come again on Wednesday or Thursday. Voila!
5. Redbox! On the weeks we somehow forget to mail back the movie or Bill and I want to rent something for ourselves or the kids have extra time off school, etc. We use Redbox, DVD vending machine. $1 a night. Redbox can be found at various locations around town. Here they are at Albertsons . We’ve found them at Mc Donald’s when traveling. Movies checked out at a Redbox, can be returned to any redbox.
6. We also have an account at Redbox. When we’d like a Redbox movie, we sign into our account, enter our zip code, and search for the movie we’d like to rent. It tells you which Redbox in town the movie is available at and then allows you to reserve it. When you go to pick it up, you just slide your card, and out pops your movie.

Some of the lesser known films our family has enjoyed are:
1. The Ultimate Gift
2. Akeelah and the Bee
3. Second Chances
4. The Blue Butterfly
5. I am David
6. The Trial of Old Drum
7. The Railway Children
8. The Greatest Game Ever Played
9. Country Remedy
10. Moondance Alexander

Quiet

Last week, Bill and I looked at each other, and with eyes rolling, commented on how glad we were we'd put the kids all in school this year. Because - they're never there. Between sickness, and Christmas, and Martin Luther King, and President's Day, and teacher work days, and snow days...someone is ALWAYS home. To add to that, my sweet husband has been home everyday since November (except for his trip to Phoenix).

So, today is the day! ALL FOUR BOYS ARE AT SCHOOL - AND Bill is gone for the morning too! It is so quiet here, I'm beside myself. I have had an actual time in the Word, with NO ONE around, and am enjoying my tea.

Wow!

Yep!

Valentine's Day

We've been so sick around here. Clayton and Hayden missed a whole week of school, and Ian missed Friday. That means, Riley was the only one that made his Valentine's party. Of course, I had already volunteered to make cookies for Hayden and Ian's classes - decorated for Ian, undecorated for Hayden. I did. But I did it the easy way....not just store-bought dough, but store-bought dough, that was already rolled into sheets! Can you say L.A.Z.Y!? In fact, Wal-mart made my red velvet cake this year.

But this morning I was feeling enough better to attempt some special pancakes.

One of the special things about this year was watching Ian open his Valentines at home, after Riley brought them home from school. He liked all of them, but kept looking for one...the one from Danielle - his very best friend at school.

Danielle is even smaller than Ian, just about as cute (can't be as cute, 'cause she's not mine), and maybe even more rambunctious - if you can believe that!

Here is the precious Valentine from one first grader to another.

To the best friend in the world: I have a special friend name Ian. His is very nice. He is very crazy and wierd no. Love, Danielle. Go Ian

Field Trip to Historic Wallace, Idaho

Saturday, Clayton had basketball tournaments in Mullan, Idaho. He still wasn't feeling great, and had a hard time staying in the game. They lost their first game, but still had to play a second. The next game wasn't for about four hours. Clayton had been selected to represent his team in a free throw contest, so we headed across town (or across the street - same thing in Mullan), to the other gym and cheered for him there.

Then we headed a few miles back up the road towards home to the historic silver mining town of Wallace, Idaho (where Dante's Peak was filmed)to eat lunch.





While our meal was being prepared, Bill encouraged me to head next door to one of the local antique shops by myself for a few minutes.

Guess what I found?

HATS!

I had forgotten how much I loved hats. I used to wear them all the time. In fact, in the days where I wore dresses to church every Sunday, a new outfit wasn't really complete until I had a hat to go with it. I miss that!

So bear with the cell-phone quality pics and silly looks on my face as I do my own photography.














My Favorite


Bill's Favorite

No, I didn't bring any of them home....but I did go buy stuff to make one!

Then we decided to drive around town and look at old houses.

The kind of house I want to live in someday

The kind of house Bill wants to live in someday

We decided we might have to live next door to each other! :D

What We've Been Up To

So what have we been up to the last few months?

Traveling We hit the road Christmas day and drove to Arkansas, stopping for one night. We had a great time spending "Christmas" with all of Bill's family for the first time in four years. Bill's parents rented a Christian camp on top of a mountain in the middle of Nowhere, Arkansas and we all piled in for four days of fun! The kids all bunked upstairs. The adults all had rooms downstairs. We shared a common living room and had an indoor gym. We even hired the camp to cook a couple of meals for us, so we could just hang out. It was a lot of fun, and it was so good to see everyone. Plus, there is nothing like eight days on the road for four days of visiting. :D We stopped by my granparents on the way home and visited with them. The drive home wasn't as fast as we hit blizzards in Wyoming, etc. Here are a couple of pics from the trip:


Grandpa and Granny


Nephew Nathan and his girlfriend, Breanne, who I love because she is a fellow northerner and there is finally someone else at the Gifford gatherings who understands my language - and food choices! LOL!


Ian and Cousin Libby's Traditional Crazy Picture


Brothers


Cousins

When we got home, Bill headed off to Phoenix for almost a month to golf. He needed to practice and take his PAT's down there. Our hope was to have some things totally taken care of before the golf season opened here. He stayed with some old friends from the BSU at ASU, visited some of my family down there, saw some old friends from our days and West Greenway, and took a quick trip up to Cottonwood to see the Scott's. Our friends, Pat and Janet, (our former pastor in AZ), loaned Bill a vehicle. He was able to practice with Branden Styer, a good friend who is trying the Gateway Tour this year, and some of the other local pros. He passed half of the playing test, and can start his coursework as soon as he is re-hired at the club (hopefully this spring....fingers crossed). He came home very tanned and constantly cold!

Scrambling ....is what I was doing while he was gone. I had the audacity to do what we women do sometimes, and tell myself thatit wouldn't be that bad because He doesn't do much anyway. I know. Low. Well, trust me. The Lord did some humbling. I would get up at six, get everyone ready for school, lunches packed, breakfast fed, and rides done. Then go home and work. Then clock out and do carpool for Clayton's school, pick up the other kids, run errands, back to get Clayton from basketball. Then home for dinner, homework, baths, etc. Get the kids to bed, then go back to work. Crash about midnight and start all over again. Ugh! At least that was on the weekdays. My home group was fantastic, though. They brought meals several times a week, so I would have one less thing to do. I don't think I ever cooked on a work night. Someone also anonymously paid for me to have my house cleaned. I've never had that done before. So I felt very blessed. On the weekends I would rest some and did some...

Decorating I just got plum fed up with some things around here. Before Bill left he had to replace the toilet upstairs, so of course, why not do the tile. So after he left, I decided it finally needed paint -and a new shower rod and a new shower head and a new window treatment, and a towel loop, and a few other things....you know how it goes. So it now looks like a main bathroom (with a few leftover vintage fixtures), rather than the room in the house you try to avoid the most. I also painted the kitchen, made curtains for the boys' rooms, and made a curtain for our bathroom.

Performing Yes, my boys go to a circus school! That is what Jonathan says anyway. LOL! Riley and Ian had professional juggler Jen Slaw at their school this month, and they were in heaven with all they were learning. Here is some treasures from that:


Ian spinning plates


Riley's performance


Riley and Jen Slaw

Celebrating After almost eleven years of marriage, my brother Jonathan and his wife Michelle have decided they were ready to enter the realm of parenthood! There is finally going to be a cousin on the Brandel side! We were all extremely surprised and very ecstatic, and I must admit I'm having to restrain myself from spending my whole paychecks on merchandise from work! Bill is praying for a little girl, so he can spoil her and send her home, and we are looking for giant stuff animals that we can give to them to return the favors of the last several years - so if you see any, let me know. LOL!



Play-ing ...in the sense of the dramatic. Because stomach flu caused Clayton to miss his drama/choir perfomance, he has to see several concerts and plays and do critiques before the end of the month. We went and saw "Little Shop of Horrors" together at our local Playhouse and are heading to the college for "The Doctor In-Spite of Himself" next week. We are also hunting down concerts, etc to complete the assignments. Let me know if you hear of anything local - especially if it is free!

Mobilizing I finally have a laptop!...and with our road trip to Arkansas, I learned quite a bit about Wi-Fi. I also found out that Mc Donald's is about your best bet for a connection in Arkansas. I worked one day between the kid's video game machines, with the laptop propped on a high chair. The manager was very kind to set me up there when I explained that I really needed an outlet, and there was no other choice. It wasn't the most comfortable option, but I managed. The next day, I rolled my window down by the light pole in Ozark and plugged in and sat in the van to work, while tapping into McDonald's Wi-Fi. Good times!



Basketball-ing Riley finished his season just before Christmas. Clayton started as soon as we got back from Christmas. He is doing pretty well on the Middle School Boys B team at Charter and feels fortunate to play most of the game as a sixth grader.

Recovering I got very sick while Bill was gone. Great timing! After five days of determination, vitamin C, juice, and Activate, I surrendered and went to urgent care for anti-biotics. The week before, Ian and Hayden both had sore throats and missed school. This week, Hayden and Clayton have been running fevers and having chest coughs. Clayton has missed a whole week of school!

Studying Bill gave me a very special gift for Christmas, and I've been enjoying it very much. It is the 90 Day Journal version of Beth Moore's Beloved Disciple - a great, daily reminder to dive deeper into my love relationship with Jesus.



Struggling I'd be lying if I said we were doing "GREAT!" Times are tough all over the nation and we are no exception. It is difficult to go into this kind of economy when you are already tapped. Bill hasn't worked since November, and the course is making huge cuts. We aren't convinced he'll have a job in the spring. To add to that, we found a lump in Bill's leg this week in the same place the last one was removed. It started causing pain the next day. He will see the surgeon again on Tuesday to see what is next. We seem to be in one of those "when it rains, it poors" stages, and if allowed, we'd come up with plenty to gripe and worry about. But instead, we're committed to continue....

Growing as always. Every experience and every hardship leads to a new depth of understanding for God and His ways....and a new invitation to go deeper with Him!

Truths Self-Evident

As the days of our nation become more and more critical, so is my own sense of urgency to be involved in political matters. Though, my time seems to be more and more limited, and I rarely have time to blog as it is, I have decided to start a separate blog for my political "musings". I do that out of respect for those who simply really don't want to hear it. :D ....and because I'm a bit OCD and like things categorized and separated.

Though, I haven't yet entered an actual post, I invite you to visit my new page and subscribe if you share my interest in politics - notice I didn't say you had to share my views. wink. wink.

You can take a look here or reference it in the future in my blog list on the side.

Forgiveness vs. Trust

Facebook is an interesting thing. It enables you to connect with all kinds of people from your past - friends and enemies. Thankfully, on Facebook, you have an "easy button." You can just hit "ignore" when a an enemy soldier requests your friendship. But the interesting part, is the feelings that even the request stirs up. You can hit "ignore" to the request. But you can't always just hit "ignore" to the feelings that stir up in your heart.

When I was a teenager, there was a certain family that totally had it out for my family. We're talking, getting rid of my dad's job, vandalizing our house, slandering us to our friends...I could go on. It was horrible. Our house was egged, our security lighting was shot out, a car window was shot out, prowlers were caught as they ran to this family's van. My tire spicket was bent to not hold air, and then I was chased through a dark parking lot while I tried to escape in my disabled vehicle. My friends all dropped me, except three. My dad was forced to resign his job, our family had to leave our church...all the while this family laughed, enjoyed their pleasures, and embraced the friends they had stolen.

This last week, a member of said family requested my friendship on Facebook. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I thought of them. I really believed I had totally forgiven, forgotten, and moved on. In my blissful ignorance, I preferred to believe that they had probably repented and changed...and if they had the opportunity would beg for forgiveness. I have heard of trials they have faced in the years since, and figured that their compassion had probably deepened. But when the Facebook request hit my inbox, I suddenly felt slammed into a wall of anger, frustration, fear, and disbelief.

Since this person didn't just request my friendship, but sent a message, I decided to assume the best. Perhaps they had completely turned around and were looking up all their past victims on Facebook to repent and clear their conscience of their offenses. So, I messaged back and hinted at my surprise and poor memories of our past, giving opportunity to divulge an apology. However, when my comments were meant with silly sarcasm, I realized that this person was at best completely clueless or at worst, still looking to devour. So, I hit the easy button: ignore.

But as I mentioned before, you can't just ignore the whirpool stirred up in your heart. So I was forced to confront and deal with reality and process some things about forgiveness. Here are some things I have processed and a few new that I have learned:

1. Forgiviness and Trust are not the same thing.
A. Forgiveness doesn't require anyone else's repentance. Forgiveness is an act of your own heart. It is accepting God's offer to heal your heart and teflon coat it from bitterness. It is the refusal to allow the hurtful acts to damage your soul. It allows you to extend agape love to the one that hurt you, even if the relationship isn't healed enough to extend phileo love. Forgiveness keeps your heart soft towards the Lord and towards the possibilities of restored relationship with the offender - towards the possibilities of being able to offer phileo. Forgiveness is a heart action - an attitude.
B. Trust depends on the offender's repentance. Trust discerns if the offender is a safe person or not. Do they intend to hurt and damage? Or were they simply ignorant? Or maybe not ignorant but completely repentant and desire to be completely restored before you and the Lord? Trust is an activity. Trust actively removes the armour that guards your heart from someone. Trust allows the offender to see and have access to your vulnerable parts. Trust extends phileo love.
2. Forgiveness should come before trust. Allowing God to heal the heart, coat it as He needs to needs to come before trust. Trust should come after full repentance on the part of the offender and after the Lord has prompted you that it is safe to move towards the restoration of a phileo relationship - rather than continuing to simply be a channel of His agape.
3. When you have forgiven someone, and they have not repented, most likely, they will offend you again. The memory of the offense often feels like a repeat offense, when there has been no repentance, and forgiveness has to be extended with every memory. This is the meaning of Jesus' reference to forgiving 70x7 - for every offense.

So in the end, I've been working through forgiving the repeat offense caused by stirred up memories on the part of an unrepentant offender, but choosing to continue to respectfully serve as a channel of God's agape love, rather than offer to open up a phileo relationship.

What is the difference?

Practically speaking for this situation. Here are some examples:

Agape - Choosing to not give names when telling my story, or even the location of the country this happened in since we lived in more than one place during those years; choosing to not publicize the actual volitile words that I struggle with saying when I rethink that time in my life; choosing to not reply to the person with ugliness and accusation; choosing to not ask all our past mutual friends to make a choice between me and them; choosing to reply to the person's initial message with kind inquisitiveness, giving them the benefit of the doubt (assuming the best until proven otherwise); choosing not to repay vengance, but let the Lord handle it.

Not Extending Phileo - not allowing this person to have access to my personal profile, blog address, e-mail address, etc; choosing to not divulge information about my extended family - even basic details of location or marital status; choosing to not require an apology when it isn't offered; choosing to not require them to be someone they can't be, for my benefit.

Anyway, here's to the "ignore" button on Facebook! ...and here's to the tenderness of God's love and forgivness that makes all of this possible!

My new skin

I love this new blog skin I found because it combines some of my very favorite things: love, the beach, and chocolate.

I hope to be back soon to muse about something a little more important - but we'll see!