I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but before I started this blog, I actually had another one. Oh yes I did. I never told anyone except for David about it, and if memory serves I only wrote a couple of posts. I can’t even remember what I called it, but I do know that I deleted it in its entirety. So you can’t find it. Nah nah nah nah boo boo. :-)

I started it because several people had been asking me to find a way to share my recipes…like could I please type all of them and print them out, or could I do a website, or maybe I could do a cookbook, because, yeah, I don’t know about you, but I have a sideline printing business when I’m not chasing a three year old or collapsing on the couch as the result of all the chasing. I decided that blogging was the way to go, and my thinking was that I’d post a recipe each day, along with some inspirational tidbit to accompany it.

Y’all. It was SO. NOT. ME.

I mean, the recipe part was fine and all, but the “inspirational” part was just painful. I think everybody who reads this blog knows where I stand in terms of my faith, but trying to convey that in a serious, devotional-type way was, honestly, unintentionally comical. Yes, I have something to say about Christianity. Yes, I have something to say about cooking. But trying to turn a recipe into a springboard for spiritual talk ended up sounding like one of those cheesy emails you get with “Recipe For Friendship” in the subject line and then it tells you to take a 1/2 cup of compassion and sift it with 1/4 cup of understanding and then gently mix all with a tablespoon of honesty and a heapin’ teaspoon of laughter.

SOOOOO not me.

I realized how far off the blogging base I was when I was reading some of my favorite blogs one day. I thought, “You know, I’m going about this thing all wrong. I’m trying to be someone I’m not…I need to just be me.” And right after that was when I started BooMama, which is just about as me as it comes. The reason why the first blog didn’t work is not because it wasn’t a lovely little idea…it didn’t work because I wasn’t being myself. The reason why some of the blogs I love to read that ARE inspirational work is because the people who write them are being themselves. I never understood how important that part of blogging would be.

I really do wish I were all spiritual and thoughtful and stuff…I wish I could write inspiring devotions and take Scripture and offer all sorts of new insight with beautiful figurative language. I wish I could write allegories and tie them back into the Bible. But I’m way too literal for that. My allegories would go something like this:

There was a beautiful tree. And nothing grew on it. Jesus says, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” So the tree must not have had deep roots. Or stuff would’ve grown. The same is true with us. Because we need roots in Christ. To, you know, grow.

Inspiring, wasn’t it?

I guess this is my roundabout way of saying thank you for letting me be me on this blog thing-y. I read some of the things (another EXCELLENT, specific word choice) that other people are writing, and I am floored by how smart they are. And how they aren’t sidetracked by stuff like The Sweeney Sisters and American Idol. How they create metaphors that, you know, work. How intelligently they defend their faith. How well they articulate what they’re feeling, as opposed to, say, posting a YouTube clip of Chris Tomlin singing so you can just experience it for yourself because the powers of description elude me.

So thanks for not pointing out how many times I use the words “just,” “stuff,” and “things.” Thanks for seeing that I really am sincere when I post stuff (see? there I go again) about God and faith, even if I don’t pose deep theological questions, even though I wish I could. Thanks for being really kind and supportive and encouraging.

And that is all.

In an incident completely unrelated to abandoning my child in time out, Saturday’s Living Beyond Yourself post was #200 for the BooMama website.

I decided to check out my old posts because you know that’s what we “webmasters” do on our “websites,” we check things. Anyway, I did some counting, and I have been blogging for approximately nineteen weeks. Yes, that’s all. I realize that it feels more like nineteen eternities, but for all intents and purposes it’s been about 5 months total. So I did some more math because I’m a total nerd, and on average I write a little over 10 posts a week.

I feel that we can come to several conclusions based on this information:

1) It is painfully obvious that David and I have absolutely no social life aside from the occasional church function. If you wonder how I manage to post almost every single day, I offer you three words: WE’RE ALWAYS HOME. But we like it that way.

2) I can flat crank out some writing product. You might even call me prolific if the stuff I wrote was, you know, good.

3) Considering that the cost of said writing product is for you, the reader, approximately nothing, I think it’s safe to say that you’ve gotten your money’s worth. I could shut this puppy down tomorrow and none of us would be any worse for the financial wear.

4) This blog would not exist without television, naptime and bedtime, the three critical components of my writing. If you had any idea how many blog entries have been thrown together while Alex watched an episode of “Blue’s Clues” or a Veggie Tales DVD, you would understand how #2 is possible. Give me 30 minutes, and I’ll give you, well, something. It might not be entertaining, but it’ll be something, and I’m sure that makes you feel real special.

5) I have obviously enjoyed blogging. Maybe too much.

So for “old” time’s sake, here are the posts that have resulted in the most email / phone calls / embarrassing public readings (Elise!) from y’all (but not necessarily the most comments – it took y’all a little while to catch on to that part). Please realize that when I say “most” I mean more than zero and less than five, because I’m not kidding about the “read by tens of people” deal. And I know it may be a little early to walk down BooMama memory lane, but I really don’t have anything else to say, and this will keep y’all busy for awhile. Selfless as always!

The One With The Shotgun Wedding
The One With The Fish
The One With The Bora Bora
The One With The Laundry
The Ones With My Friends

Thanks for reading. Love y’all.

Last night Alex did something – I think it was shouting “NO” at me, but it may have been unfolding all my folded towels or opening the refrigerator and drinking syrup straight from the bottle – and I put him in time out. Right now time out is very effective with A. because it removes him from the action and gives him time to settle down. It diffuses things, if you will.

Anyhoo, all I have to do for time out is say, “Alex, you did so-and-so. You need to go in time out for three minutes.” And he walks to our bedroom, climbs up on the bed, and sits quietly until David or I go into the room when time is up. Then we talk about what he did (insert applicable Scripture here), we make sure he understands the practical issue and the heart issue, we wait for an apology, and we exchange “I love you’s.” It’s a pretty clean transaction all in all. An added benefit is that it gives me time to calm down before I deal with him…mamas need time outs, too, you know.

Pretty reasonable, right? Level-headed, even?

But you haven’t heard the rest of the story.

So last night when A. used the coffee table as his personal trampoline or emptied all the dog food into the pantry or whatever it was that landed him in time out, I followed him into the bedroom, made sure he was settled, and went back into the kitchen. I was trying to get supper ready and had some prep work to do…I was chopping chicken, dicing onions, sauteeing vegetables, draining noodles, mixing everything together, warming bread, and putting the main dish in the oven.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Gosh, it seems like that would take longer than 3 minutes,” you are so right. It did take longer than 3 minutes.

Because, you see, I forgot about my child. The one who was in time out. I pretty much just left him in the bedroom. For at least 25 minutes.

I had not heard a peep out of him, so I panicked when I realized what I’d done and figured that I would no doubt find him with a large pair of scissors and substantial chunks missing from his hair, or at the very least with all my Sharpies uncapped and our coverlet as his canvas. But when I went back in the bedroom, he was sitting there just as calm as you please. He looked no different than he did at the beginning of his marathon time out session, except for the fact that he had removed his Pull-Up and placed it in the middle of the bed.

I don’t know why he decided that going commando would be the extent of his imprisoned rebellion, but I sorta chalked it up to the fact that he’s a male and every so often they just need to roam free. I don’t even pretend to understand why.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think he was traumatized by what I am now referring to as The Unfortunate Time Out Incident. But he did get a couple of packs of Veggie Tales fruit snacks as part of my pennance.

I figure we’ll settle up the rest of my pennance when he reads this post at age 20 and consequently sends me the therapy bill.

It seems like whenever I start a new Bible study or “faith journey,” God allows me to experience certain events that break me down a little bit. I figure that He knows my tendency to try to do stuff in my own strength, and just in case I forget, He finds ways to remind me that I cannot do anything apart from Him.

Last Saturday we had a rough morning at our house. I wrote about it here. But what I didn’t mention then is that by the time I strapped A. in the car to go to the grocery store, I was in rare form. Tense. Terse. As Stacy would say, “tacky.” There was no good reason except for the fact that I wanted some uninterrupted time to read everyone’s LBY posts, but you don’t really get uninterrupted time with a three year old in the house (I feel somewhat guilty saying that, seeing as how some of y’all have four or five kids and seem to handle all of them with great patience and grace), and my nerves were shot, and I got frustrated. I’m sure you can appreciate the irony of me going on a rip-it because I didn’t have time to read stuff for my Bible study. It was not my finest hour.

Once we finally left the house and got a couple of miles down the road, I turned on the radio because Alex would not quit talking and I don’t know if you picked up on this or not but I was IN A MOOD and answering 759 toddler questions was not real high on my list. If that sounds selfish, then it probably is…just know that I’m being very honest because I don’t see any point in pretending to be Christy-Christian-Got-It-All-Together when that’s not who I am. ANYWAY, who do you think was singing when I turned on the radio? My dear, sweet, close personal friend Chris Tomlin (ahem).

About four measures into “How Great Is Our God,” my eyes started to fill up and my heart started to give way. If you’re not familiar with the song, here are a couple of verses:

“The splendor of the King, clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice, all the earth rejoice
He wraps himself in light, and darkness tries to hide
And trembles at his voice, trembles at His voice.

How great is our God
Sing with me
How great is our God
And all will see
How great, how great is our God.”
Needless to say, by the time I heard the chorus, I was teary weeping bawling my eyes out. Good thing that’s not, um, terribly personal information or anything. But I was, y’all. Bawling.

About that time Alex spoke up from the backseat, and in the sweetest little voice he said, “Mama? What are you doing?”

And here was my answer: “Being broken.”

The process of being broken is rarely fun, but I think it is a part of what Beth refers to as “pouring out.” When we pour out everything to God – including the tears from the deepest parts of our hearts – we empty ourselves before Him. By doing that, we enable the Holy Spirit to come in and do the work of “restoration and regeneration” – the “pouring in.” I love Beth’s comment that we cannot continually feed the flesh and expect to live in the Spirit – because those two things are mutually exclusive. I had such an “ah-ha” moment about that while watching the video…it makes perfect sense that if my emotions are clogged with bitterness and frustration and sadness, there’s just not a whole lot of room left for the Holy Spirit to move.

There is so much I want to talk about…how God used Saturday’s brokenness to prepare me for Monday’s and Tuesday’s conversations with a struggling teenager, how I realized that my lack of discernment in certain areas is because of some spiritual immaturity in those same areas, how Day Four reminded me of the people who have poured out Biblical wisdom into my life (I’m going to write about that later this week…I can’t NOT write about it).

But here’s the bottom line for me: I am so grateful, so humbled, that the Spirit of the Living God can fill me up. Not because I’m worthy, but because He’s faithful. The Creator of the universe, the Lord of heaven and earth, loves us so much that He gives us the Holy Spirit to prompt and to guide and even to intercede. That blows me away.

I pray I never get over it.

“How great is our God
Sing with me
How great is our God
And all will see
How great, how great is our God.”

Addie	Heather*	Carol
M	Rach	Jeana
Jenn	Amanda	MamaB
GiBee	Boomama	Maria
Blair	Heather	Nancy
Janna	Flipflop	Robin
Sherry	Patricia	Tara
Lauren	HolyMama!	Faith
Christy	Eph2810	Karin
Leann	Rachel	Janice
This is a list of the women participating in the study and the links to their blogs. New postings on the study will be published for the next ten weeks, between Friday 8pm – Saturday 8am. Please feel free to visit each of us and comment. Everyone is welcome to participate in this discussion as we seek to live beyond ourselves. May God bless you richly from the hearing of His word.

For what it’s worth, this video gives more insight into my sense of humor than anything I could possibly write. I don’t know what like-humored soul recorded this little gem, but I am most grateful. Sister and Liz, get out your microphones!

p.s. BooMama Tech Help: the video can be a little slow-loading, even on DSL, so you may want to start it, mute your computer, walk away for a minute, then come back and drag the play bar back to the beginning. Not that I have OCD or anything. Or control issues. Or anything.

I think Sister is right…lack of sleep has dulled my descriptive abilities. So I’m headed for the bed in just a second.

But I did want to quickly tell you what a goob I am. GOOB. GOOOOOOOOB.

My oldest friend in the world, Laura, called tonight to run some menu ideas past me for a little soiree’ she’s having this weekend. She told me that she was thinking about doing pork tenderloin but what sides should she do and yes, she loves sweet potatoes but her hubby, not so much, and we were essentially just shooting the foodie breeze.

So when we happened upon the subject of salads, she mentioned that her husband likes spinach salad, and I said….

I said….

I said, “Oh! There’s a recipe for that on my website.

On my WHAT?

On my WEBSITE.

Like I’m Google or something.

Like I’m some food “consultant” who provides all pertinent client information and price quotes on a custom-designed webpage.

Like I’ve taken the words “BooMama” and crafted them into a straightforward yet symbolic logo, something that will grow my brand and look great on my new line of herbs that come in tins and my special seasoning blends that come in a bottle with my picture on the label. You know me – I’m all about the merchandising.

I immediately died laughing and said, “DID YOU HEAR WHAT I JUST SAID?” We were very tickled.

Because a more accurate sentence would have been, “Oh! There’s a recipe for that on the Blogger McTemplate where I bore the living fire out of my tens of readers with vague descriptions, mixed metaphors, and lame puns. Stop by! You’ll feel a detached ambivalence about everything you read!”

After I got off of the phone, I told David what I said, and he shook his head and replied, “You. Are such a nerd.”

I am, y’all. I really am.

But thanks for stopping by “my website” anyway. I hope all the fancy graphics and interactive features aren’t too much of a distraction from all the astoundingly average writing.