Today was one of those perfect summer days – about 82 degrees outside, a little bit of a breeze, not a cloud in the sky – and the little man and I spent most of the morning with my friend NK and her two girls. Alex and NK’s older daughter played and ran and chased while NK and I sat on her patio, in the shade, entertaining her baby and talking about some Life Junk we’ve both been dealing with lately.

The baby was a little fussy, so I offered to take Alex and C. to lunch – just a little jaunt up the road to ChickFilA – and the three of us sat, and ate, and talked. I grabbed a couple of balloons – green for A., yellow for C. – as we left the restaurant, and then we dropped C. of at her house on the way back to ours.

I expected that Alex wouldn’t make it home awake, but instead he balked at his nap this afternoon – he pretty much sat in his room and played and talked during the two hours he’d normally be sleeping – and finally around 4 I pulled him out of isolation so we could eat popsicles on the front steps and run around the yard for a little while. About an hour later we came inside, fixed something to drink, and I started working on supper: making hamburger patties, chopping stuff for a salad, shucking corn and getting it ready for the grill. Alex handled all the “shakey shake” duties – meaning that he sprinkled seasoning wherever it needed to go – and we talked on and off while he watched “Blue’s Clues.”

D. finished up his work around 6, and he and Alex headed outside for grill duty while I checked email, read some blogs, and vacuumed up the corn silks that had scattered across the rug in my kitchen. We sat down for supper, the three of us, and Alex said his Official Blessing: “Dear God, thank you for today. Thank you for our food. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.” The hamburgers were great, the corn was okay – Alex went a little heavy on the dill when he did the shakey-shake – and the salad was fresh in a way that only happens in summertime.

By the time I ran Alex’s bath, he looked slightly like Pigpen. His feet and legs were filthy from all his outside activity; his mouth was surrounded by a ring of peanut butter coated with a couple of layers of Cheese-Its and Cheetos crumbs. I thought to myself that he looked and smelled like little boys should once the weather turns warm – dirty, for sure, legs covered with little cuts and bruises, the official battle scars of his summer adventures.

Once he was clean and pajama-clad, Alex and his daddy played trains, then came downstairs for a little TV time, neither of them doing a very good job of keeping their eyes open. So Alex went up to bed, said his prayers, and was out like a light in no time at all.

It seems like, with my personality, I’m always on the lookout for “the funny.” I see the world around me at sort of a skewed angle, so I tend to go through my days being entertained by the oddest little occurrences: the way a clerk at a grocery store pronounces “celery,” or the way a political candidate announces that she is “for education. Absolutely for education” (I’m sure the anti-education lobby, powerful as it is, was shaking in its boots at that bold proclamation), or the way a little boy at Walmart dodges behind a rack of clothes just as his mama’s hand is about to make contact with his behind. I am, as a general rule, pretty easily entertained.

What I am not, at least not often enough, is easily grateful. There was absolutely nothing spectacular or special about our day, but what bowls me over as I think back on it is that it was absolutely everything that I never thought I wanted. I never dreamed of marriage or of children. I never pictured myself living in suburbia, shuttling kids to fast-food restaurants, playgrounds, and zoos. I certainly never thought that I’d belong to a church where there is no stained glass, no kneelers behind the pews, and instruments that require electricity. So while I don’t know exactly what I thought my life would be, I do know that I had some vague notion of living in a big city in a fabulous apartment and walking to a job where I edited what other people wrote. And I’m certain that I never thought my life would be this one that I have.

In light of all that, I just want to write it down and make it official: I’m so thankful, as I look back over this very ordinary day in our very ordinary life, that God has blessed me with all the things I never wanted.

Because there’s absolutely nowhere else that I’d rather be.

First, the boy. I love this picture – mainly because Alex looks like a man on a mission. You know, he’s walking down a hill, very busy, got some stuff to do, very busy.

Okay. On to the aforementioned dog.

At this point Alex was still trying to convince Maggie to play. Maggie, however, was far more enticed by whatever she saw on her paw. She had little interest in the toddler who was barking orders at her (the PUN never stops around here, oh no it doesn’t).

Yeah. I have no idea. Some calisthenics, maybe? A little light stretching before they begin their backyard workout?

There were lots of pictures between the last one and this one – too blurry to post because of All The Running. Never underestimate the potential for fun when you have a three year old and a 100 pound lab together in a large grassy area.

They’re a pretty cute pair.

I was making my way through my excruciatingly boring line-up of summer TiVo programs Saturday night, and I decided to settle in for a new episode of “Paula’s Home Cooking.” Y’all know I love Paula, and I’m constantly amazed by the ways she can take a perfectly healthy vegetable and transform it into a fat-laden, buttery delight. And after what I saw Saturday night, I think she may have outdone herself in the cholesterol-spiking department.

Here’s what she did. She took some perfectly lovely fresh ears of corn, slathered them with mayonnaise, rolled them in parmesan cheese, added chili powder and salt, wrapped them in foil, and then cooked them on the grill. The finished product looked delicious, though it didn’t resemble corn so much as some county-fair delicacy that had been battered and deep fried.

And I of course cannot wait to try it.

We have a propensity in the South for taking healthy foods and rendering them void of any redeeming nutritional value (see fried cheese, fried mushrooms, etc.), and I’m a little curious: do y’all have a favorite “healthy”-food-gone-wrong? I mean, yeah, you like broccoli on its own…but do you like it more when it’s covered in butter and cheese? Personally, I’m partial to a squash casserole where the squash, cooked down to the point that all those pesky vitamins are eliminated, is mixed with sour cream, cheese, onion, and topped with buttered cracker crumbs.

I’m not completely hopeless, just so you know. I love steamed asparagus with just a little salt and lemon juice on it.

But if you want to melt some cheese on top, you’ll get no complaints from me. :-)

We got up earrrrrrly this morning to make the trek back to B’ham, mainly because I have A Lot Of Cooking to do between now and tomorrow night. And Alex was fussy, as one would expect a three year old to be when awakened at 6:30 AM and then strapped into a carseat. But about an hour into our trip, I could tell that he was making the move from fussy to Something Is Awry, and an hour later when the crying. wasn’t. stopping., I got a little concerned.

The bottom line is that we went straight from the interstate to the pediatrician’s office, and the little man has an eye infection and an ear infection. Guess it’s the Week-O-Infection around here. :-) And can you imagine the interweb search engines that will direct people my way as a result of that last sentence?

He’s much better now, the toddler. A hefty dose of Tyenol did the trick on that pesky ear pain, and a three hour afternoon nap offered even more restorative powers. So now I’m free to get in the kitchen and, as Sister and I say, HIT IT. Lots to do.

Bless his heart.

Since I’ve been a mama – and especially over the last year and a half – I’ve found myself using the same phrases over and over: “Obedience brings blessing, disobedience brings consequence”…”Don’t step outside the circle of protection your daddy and I have created for you”…”Alex, you’re going to need God’s heart to make good choices – you can’t just rely on your own.”

During this week’s study on self-control, I felt a little reprimanded my OWN self – like God wanted me to absorb those very same lessons that we’ve been teaching Alex for the last 18 or 19 months…those very same lessons that we’ll probably still be teaching in 18 or 19 years…those very same lessons that, in so many ways, I’m still learning myself.

Self-control, according to Beth, “is an issue of mastery, of authority, of boundaries.” She goes on to point out that “without self control, we are like a city with broken down walls” – and that’s an analogy that I love…even though I can be way too literal, it makes perfect sense to me. And we can see so easily that when there are cracks in the walls of our self control, cracks in the protection that God gives us from flesh and the world and the enemy, inevitably our boundaries start to crumble. Beth says, “God demanded walls in every dwelling place He chose to grace,” and our bodies – the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, the very temple of God – are no different.

It’s all about obedience, really: “self control is the ability to make choices which invite and enhance the authority and filling of the Holy Spirit. Self control is the decision to remain within the boundaries of victory.” When we let those walls crumble, we make ourselves vulnerable to attack and destruction – many times in ways we never could have imagined. Sin doesn’t storm the walls…instead, it creeps in, seeps in, and spreads so subtly and slowly that many times it’s taken us over before we even realized it was there.

So in what areas am I lacking self control? How much time do you have? I can honestly say that I don’t struggle so much with what comes out of my mouth anymore – I understand the importance and value of “a bridled tongue” – but I continue to struggle with what goes in my mouth. The discpline of good health is so hard for me -and I am so consistently inconsistent with it. The discipline of PRIORITIES can get the better of me from time to time…how to keep out the stuff that hinders, how to throw off the junk that holds me back. The discipline of realizing that life is not about what you have, it’s about Who you serve – sometimes it’s hard to keep sight of that in suburbia. But like Solomon teaches us, all the material possessions of this world are “meaningless” – and while D. and I certainly understand that, we’ve got to get that across to Alex, too.

But here’s the “big deal” lesson, at least for me: self control is the component of the fruit of the spirit that enables all the other qualities to show. The discipline of self control brings blessing (OH for Alex to be able to realize that at an early age)…because when we are under control, we can display love, patience, peace, joy, gentleness, kindness – we can enjoy true freedom in our Christian walks. Can anyone else appreciate the irony of that? That when I am controlled, when I am disciplined, then I am FREE? It goes against everything the world tells us (the world says, “don’t put up walls” or “you need to break down your walls” or “don’t be so restrained”) – but God wants us to have walls of protection, walls that are impenetrable to the forces of the world. I want that, too.

Now, aside from the topic of self-control, I have to say something else. I never, ever thought that I would “meet” people through blogging. I never expected to participate in a Bible study, or make a friend, or feel a sense of community, or use my blog to communicate with anyone other than my “forever friends” and family. So can I just tell you? This Bible study? And the people in it? Awesome. I have been overwhelmed by your kindness, and your support, and your prayers, and your posts, and your comments, and your encouragement. It’s been exactly the study I needed at exactly the right time – and I hope y’all will continue to come by and “fellowship,” even though the study is over. Thanks, Lauren, for having this Bible study idea to begin with – and thanks to all of you who have studied and posted and shared. I am grateful. And I have been blessed.

So here I am in the car at a gas station in Mississippi – on the way to Memphis – looking like I could use a touch of powder and maybe even a shot of Botox in the forehead area. And yes, this is the first time I’ve put a picture of me on the blog, but this one tickled me because of the Mini-Me back there in the car seat.

Here’s Alex, who was entertaining his Aunt Janie at the time.

A. and H. ham it up while eating their chicken. Oh, what a clever play on words that was. :-)

And yes, it’s perfectly permissible if you think these three are the cutest cousins you’ve ever seen.