Methinks Scott Muschany will win this race over his competitor… If for no other reason than the sheer beauty of his website, created by my favorite web producer, Jeremy Tredway. [- The Proud Wife]

In all seriousness… Jeremy and I lived in St. Louis during one of the most bizarre, scattered election years in recent history — 2000. Not only was the presidential race very tight, and number-crunching went back and forth all night long, but local races were the same. Some of our favorite candidates (John Ashcroft included) lost their political positioning and others won. Voting booths in the city were left open later than originally planned, adding to the controversy of the day. All in all, there was quite a bit of excitement.

Thus, when Scott approached Jeremy regarding a website for his campaign for state representative, I could not have been more thrilled. Though we’re no longer in St. Louis, this race in particular will keep me interested in the region’s results on election day. Plus, I agree with the moral stances included in Scott’s platform and am always proud to support a politician who is truly concerned with loving God’s people. The Muschanys are an honorable, respectable family and I am certain Scott will be an excellent representative for the 87th congressional district. I hope to have more opportunities to be involved in the political arena in the future… This is a great start!

Life is filled with good and bad. The bad seems oftentimes to come out of left field, so to speak. We’re just walking along, minding our own business and WHAMMY! we get knocked to our butts. Bad. And then there’s the good. The sometimes unexpected, sometimes glorious, always uplifting good things. And there’s joy in the good.

There was a lot of good involved in last weekend, and a fair share of bad as well… The bad category must be reduced to generalities and must not be allowed much blog space as it is, well, bad, and my blog hates badness. Here goes: arthritis, relationship problems, cold weather, suppression of good, heartache, kidney stones and sorrow.

Good:
– God’s green earth… tulips and daffodils, weeding and removing winter’s leaves from the flower beds, sunshine, pansies, the opening of garden centers across the city
– Friends… who are back from Iraq and reunited with their families, who work with me every day and can enjoy a night of fun together, who love “Alias”, who have procreated very entertaining children, who live next door to me and are so wonderfully grand, who worship with me in spirit and in truth every Sunday morning, who are married to me (that should be “who IS married to me” as I am married to but one man)
– Games… Outburst, Catch Phrase and Mexican Train Dominoes (good for groups), and Settlers of Cattan (for 2-4 players)

Cling to what is good, hate what is evil. Today the sunshine reigns and happiness prevails. There is much to be thankful for in my life.

A love affair has begun. It exists between me and my Silk Vanilla Soy Milk — and nobody better get between us. I put money down in the checkout lane and take Silk home with me. Silk gives me faithful nourishment and satisfaction. It’s a 50/50 relationship. Morning, noon and night, Silk is there. Mmm, mmm good.

Blogland’s been boring recently. And I’ll admit I haven’t helped the situation much.

Every morning I get online to check my email, catch up on the news and read a few blogs. It’s the blogs with new entries (daily ones are best) and great comment conversations that keep my interest. And that’s why I say Blogland has been kinda dull… Not that many new entries, a definite lack of comment conversation… Yawn.

In contrast to Blogland in recent days, the RealWorld has been quite interesting. Every day something new arises to keep my interest and create some sort of energy. One entertaining aspect of my Friday afternoon was a conversation centered on men… What guys are all about. Why they ask women out on dates and why not. What they are looking for. Rejection. Physical attraction. Lack of desire. Too much desire. Very interesting stuff! I must say that I’m relieved to have ended up with a guy who very much pursued me. Part of Jeremy’s confidence in dating me was due to all his previous relationships… He knew what he wanted and didn’t want in a woman, and went full force towards what he wanted. I didn’t know what hit me at the time! All I knew was that this guy and I sure crossed paths a lot… Youth group planning meetings, which lead to actual youth group meetings, church, going out to lunch, invitations to take his dog for walks, etc. And before I knew it, we were dating… my feet quit hitting the ground, my head was absolutely in the clouds, and I was living on Cloud 9.

Okay. That was a fun trip down memory lane. I promise to do my part to make Blogland more interesting… Now back to the RealWorld on a wonderful, rainy Saturday morning.

Out with the old, in with the new. The entire contents of my closet (and now that I’ve thought of it, the rest of my house as well!) need to be replaced. I’ve got that spring feeling where all my clothes look too warm, too worn, or simply outdated and I absolutely must purchase something new. Now. Today. This minute.

All it took was one venture into one changing room in one store to convince me that my closet is really okay. For this overcast spring day at least.

What I discovered is that Medium is the new XS… and every girl wants to be a Hootchee Mama. No, really, I’m absolutely serious. I am not a big girl — wait, let me clarify that — I am TALL, but not wide (at least, not in shirt sizes) and can usually get by with wearing medium sized tops. But apparently Old Navy thinks Smalls need to fit children the size of my 11 month old buddy Cadence and Mediums are intended for prepubescent twelve year olds. Then you add in the Hootchee factor. For those desiring cleavage or navel exposure, shopping is a breeze. For pete’s sake, I work in a CHURCH office with a bunch of MEN. The last thing I need to be looking like is Brittany Spears.

Old Navy redeemed itself, though, with two tables of deliciously l-o-n-g tank tanks. Long. Can you believe it? I snatched up three, in fun spring colors, and called my shopping day good. Now I’m off to continue with the “out with the old” notion… But not in my closet quite yet. The bookshelves, china cabinet and top of the refrigerator are calling my name.

Today is one of those days where I could be home every minute and be absolutely content.

An early Friday night bedtime lent itself to the abrupt awakening of my body at 8:00 AM sharp. Nine and a half hours? Okay, you’re done! each muscle fiber seemed to say. Every noise heard after that point — the beeps of large machinery working on the burned-down house on the corner, the lawnmower of some insane early riser — pushed me out of bed and downstairs to an early Saturday start.

The delightful presence of sunshine and the warmer temperatures of late propelled me to a bit of spring cleaning in the kitchen. I knew the feeling wouldn’t hold out, but before my laziness set in, I cleaned out the cupboards and reorganized all the food products. While digging through old bags of almonds (throw ’em out) and old, unopened bags of dried coconut (throw ’em out; oops — rethink that. let’s keep ’em), I became Uber Housewife and did laundry and made a pot of split pea soup.

Outdoors the Nebraska wind blew but didn’t block the sheer loveliness of this, the first day of spring. The purple crocuses in the front gardens couldn’t be contained and bloomed en masse as the sun rose. The yard developed a subtle green glow and one daffodil’s bold yellow bud began a competition for Best in Show versus the gang of purple surrounding it. Once the temperatures get just a little bit warmer, I’ll be outside enjoying all the newly blossoming beauty. Until then, you can find me indoors, perhaps folding laundry or watching something new from Blockbuster.

Today, I am a homebody at heart.

Dad needs to lose weight. I need to get better blood sugar control. Our conversation last night went something like this:

Me: You wanna try to give up sweets?
Dad: You’re the only person I’d do it for.
Me: Could we try it for a month? Or two weeks? Dad: I don’t know if I want to do it…
Me: I don’t know either… Dad: So, about these new computers at work… [definite conversation shift]

And that was it! I called him back later last night and and forcibly set up the challenge: No sweets for two full weeks. Then we’ll re-evaluate.

It’s weird, but all I need is a little challenge to conquer a goal. Someone just needs to utter the words, I bet you CAN’T do [fill-in-the-blank] and I’m off. These Lawton/Jones genes contain mega-competitiveness, as well as stubbornness and compassion. When I was 13 or so I didn’t say one word on a drive from Kansas City back home to Lincoln because my folks bet us kids a dollar we couldn’t do it — that dollar was mine, woohoo! The nail-biting challenge of 1996 was quite successful as well. I’m hoping this sweets thing works, too… Hopefully, Dad will drop a few pounds and I will even out my blood sugars a bit more. Farewell, Ivanna Cone ice cream… Hello, bananas and apples!

I have an endless fascination with the blogging world. I guess you could say I’m addicted. I’m actually grateful that my workday begins at noon because I can wake up slowly in the mornings and spend an hour eating breakfast, watching tv and blogging.

Tuesdays are my days off. I get the entire day to relax, run errands, get extra housework done, visit friends… basically I get to do whatever the heck I want to do. So this morning, as scheduled days ago, I got up and worked out with my mom. Mom has a lovely workout room in her apartment building — weights, treadmills, bikes, and the icing on the cake, cable television. So we did a bit here, a bit there and called it good. Yes, it was a weeny’s workout but we’re weenies, so really it was perfect. We spent the entire day together… Hobby Lobby, Applebees for lunch, and a nice low-key afternoon at her place. The only thing missing? My hour of online time.

So now I am making up for it; afterall, Tuesday isn’t over yet. I surf, I read, I laugh, I comment. I think… therefore I blog.

A few weeks ago, spring fever hit our household and so we skipped church and went off to explore the countryside. Choosing to combine good intentions with our day o’ fun, we attempted to visit Jeremy’s grandparents in David City. Our spontaneity was timed precisely during their Sunday visits to see their children in Lincoln, so we didn’t get to visit them afterall. These photos were taken at the David City park… Both Jeremy and I have memories of climbing on and around tanks in parks (what is it with tank in parks?). Not only was this smallish tank good fodder for photos, it was also fun to climb. When you’re a little kid, you just monkey all over things like this, not at all concerned about falling off or perhaps banging your knee on cold, hard metal. I realized how darn inflexible I’ve become as an adult and how overly anxious I was about falling (on or off, either way would’ve bruised or broken something on my body). I felt especially like a big, dumb grown-up trying to climb off the thing… Jeremy had to direct my flailing right foot to the proper position so I could manuever all five feet, nine inches of me to the ground. All in all, we had a really nice afternoon driving all over eastern Nebraska, spending quality time side by side in the car. Sometimes, when nice weather beckons, you’ve just gotta get out of town…

I’m concerned because a few people think I’m not being honest with them about the arthritis that has been plaguing me the past several weeks. So here goes…

Getting up in the morning is not a pleasant task. I creak and ache and generally look like an old woman with, you guessed it, arthritis when I first get out of bed. Both hands get stiff over night and it takes awhile for them to loosen up. And until they’re loosened up, tasks like tying shoes, turning on a faucet, zipping a zipper, etc, can be quite painful. My feet also get sore… First thing in the morning the bones just hurt! I’m not absolutely trusting of them anymore and have taken on a lovely shuffle with my wonderful Acorn slippers that slides me around the house, alleving the ouch factor that comes with stepping. The shuffle began some time ago, it’s nothing new. My knees, elbows, wrists and ankles are mostly okay, sometimes they trade off mornings with varying levels of aches.

Over the past two weeks, I have cried buckets of tears about this condition. Who wants to deal with this at any point in their life, much less at 26? The bucket-filling usually commences when I’m by myself in the mornings, at the peak of achiness. But the good thing about all this, and I cannot stress this enough, is that I am THROWN to my knees as I take all this to God. Never before have I spent so much time sobbing out my worries, present and future, to the King of kings. Though it seems contradictory to call this a “good” thing — it’s not really. I take to heart, in a very non-cliche manner, Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians:

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take [the thorn] away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

HOWEVER, where Paul delights in these weaknesses, I do not. I am clearly not a saint in this struggle. But I have been able to experience God’s peace and Christ’s grace in ways I’ve never seen before. So, friends, don’t think that I’m not sharing the whole story with you intentionally (if this is the first you’ve heard of my struggles). I complain about enough things so the last thing I want to do is add arthritis to the list. And besides, I usually feel good and healthy for the latter half of my day… After my joints have loosened up a bit, by the end of each day, I’m typically feeling positive physically and emotionally.

Here’s what I want from you: I want you to pray that the arthritis goes away, if it’s the Lord will. I’ve got years of chasing after kids in my future (at least, that’s my plan) and I’d rather do it without creaky joints. If you’re willing to pray for this once a week or so, let me know by sending me an email (). Your prayers mean a lot to me.