Frazzled Reflections

To my precious little girl, I am so thankful that you are still my little girl. I am thankful that you are too young to know the uproar that was caused last weekend when yet another starlet "shocked" fans and parents of fans. I am thankful that you are still too young to ask for permission to watch an awards show on television that I know will expose you to material that is too old for you, material that will challenge your innocence. I am thankful that you are too young to have witnessed a grown man singing about having sex while dancing with a young woman nearly half his age. And I am thankful that you did not have to witness the backlash against the young woman and the delayed response to the actions of the grown man who should have known better, who should have acted better. I am thankful that you are too young to read and understand stories of judges who give less than a slap on a wrist to a grown man who takes advantage of a young woman. I am thankful that you are t...

It all started with a quiet crash. I was cleaning, the kids were quietly playing inside the house and my husband was outside mowing the lawn. Since the kids appeared to be ok and the dog was in her typical do nothing pose, I figured it was from our neighbors. Then Jeff came inside. "I need you to come outside." "Why?" "Just come outside. Kids stay inside, ok?" Somehow he had managed to hit a small rock with the riding mower that then flew up into our daughter's second story window. Thankfully the rock only went through the outside window, leaving the inside storm window intact. We cleaned up as much as we could and took stock of the situation. Over the course of three years we had come to the conclusion that our old, wood Pella windows were not nearly as good as they had been when they were installed years ago. We knew we needed new windows but we were going to put it off as long as we could. There were other projects that we wanted to comple...