What a week! May 29, 2008

Wow, is all that I can say.  I haven’t had the time to sit and blog in more then a week and I thought that I would catch everyone up on the latest.

I spent all day last Tuesday baking the 4 tier (8 layer) wedding cake.  I started at 9 a.m. and finished at 4:30 p.m..  The pound cake layers took a good deal of time to bake, but for the most part they came out well. 

On Wednesday I got a text message from my expectant friend Sarah (who had been helping me make cakes the day before), saying that she had been having contractions since 3 in the morning and that she was thinking that consistent labor was happening.  I ran a few errands and then around noon I started putting the white icing on the cake.  I finished with the icing around 8:30 that evening and was cleaning up the kitchen when I got a call from Sarah’s husband, Ben telling me that they were on the way to the hospital.  Not long after that Sarah called and asked me to come to the hospital.  I threw on a clean shirt, brushed my teeth, and headed out the door to be with Sarah and Ben.   

Sarah labored through the night and eventually got an epidural and much to my great surprise and sheer delight I was there to witness a 7 lb. 11 oz., 20″ long baby boy enter this world of ours at 10:45, Thursday morning!  Bryson Joel is one of the prettiest babies I have ever seen!  Words can not truly express how being a part of his delivery meant to me.  It was truly the most awesome thing that I have ever witnessed!  What a God moment I had as the miracle of life came forth!  Wow, wow, wow, GOD!!!

So now I have been up more then 24 hours and the cake isn’t done.  I head home from the hospital and take a 1 hour 45 min. nap and get up and start with the detail decorating.  I went to bed after 2 in the morning, finally done with the base icing.  I was so tired that my eyes burned! 

Friday morning I had John help me get the cake in the back of the van and I drove 30 m.p.h. down the highway taking the 4 tier cake to the church to set it up.  We made it without any sliding of the layers or disasters, only for me to put the cake on the table and push it across the table to the middle and stick my hand in the side of the cake!  Lol, is all I could do, thank goodness I still had icing to repair the cake.  you have to remember that I am, at this point working on 6 hours of sleep, so I am not really with it.

After finishing with the cake, I set out to decorate the tent polls, and the columns in the sancutary of the church, direct a rehearsal, and then finally crawl up in my bed and sleep!   It was a long day but not without moments of God showing me how he was still there holding me up. 

The wedding was great and I had one couple ask me to make their wedding cake to which I replied, “I promised my husband that I wouldn’t make another cake even if they paid me $1000.00, but that I could be bought for $5,000.00!”  Needless to say, they changed their mind!  But everything was nice and I am glad to say that it is over.

Monday, I sewed the slipcover for the glider rocker in Bryson’s nursery.  That was something that was supposed to be done before he got here, but then again he was 2 weeks early! 

In the midst of this crazy week, though, I had many God moments and as exhausting as it was, I was blessed by the way that God spoke to me in some very different ways.  Thank you Jesus for being my strength this week!

 

It’s time to bake the cake! May 19, 2008

Well this is the eve of the cake bake.  Tomorrow I begin the process of baking the wedding cake.  I bought all of the supplies I needed today.  I have had to get 2 large cakes pans, cardboard bases, and numerous other things before I even bought the cake ingredients.  I now have 72 eggs in my fridge, 10 boxes of cake mix, 4 boxes of Dream Whip, 1 HUGE can of Crisco, 1 bottle of vegtable oil, 8 2lb bags of confectioners sugar, 2 boxes of cake flour, 10 lbs of butter, 3 pints of sour cream, 3 jars of raspberry jam, and a roll of wax paper.  By the time I am done I will have made at least 30 cups of butter-cream icing, 2-16″, 2-13″, 2-9″, and 2-6″ round cakes, crumb coat the layers, filled some of the layers with raspberry filling, final coated all 4 layers , layered up the four tiers, and then decorated a very large wedding cake.  I think that the thing that was the most shocking to me is the amount of money it took just to buy the ingredients, $115.00 and that is a conservative figure.  I now understand part of why wedding cakes are so expensive. 

I guess when it is all done I will have to take a picture to post here.   Maybe I will take a photo diary and show a few here. 

John should make a t-shirt! May 18, 2008

“I am the key to your happiness, so don’t mess with me.”  This what John said to the kids as we drove to the movie theater to see the newest Narnia installment, Prince Caspian.  The kids were going nuts in the back seat of the van and I am sure that they were just excited about our “family night” to the movies, but they were driving us crazy.  So John was just letting them know that it didn’t matter that we already had movie tickets, we could sell them at the door.  This of course caused a change of attitude, even if it was only momentary!

The movie was great and so was the popcorn.  We finished our evening off with a walk to Mama Fu’sfor some terriaki steak and fried brown rice.  It was funny as I watched all of the middle school aged kids wander around together in “herds” (that’s what John calls them).  I am amazed at the number of kids that parents just sent off together with no supervision.  It is just not happening  for my daughter.  Now would I be willing to take her and her friends up to Mayfaire to the movies and ice cream afterwards, absolutely but not without me in tow, it’s just not smart.  I guess most parents don’t care that their 12 and 13 year old daughters are dressed like college girls and that they are hanging out with boys, sitting on their laps and kissing.  I imagine that if the fathers of those “little” girls saw them with those boys, they might feel differently.  Then again who knows, this day in age is a lot different from the way that I grew up.  The sad thing is that it is my generation who are allowing this behavior. 

OK, that’s my rant about the teens and their parents in this city.   

 ”I am the key to your happiness, don’t mess with me.”  Don’t you think that should be on a t-shirt?  Who is the key to your happiness?

Mother’s Day 2008 May 13, 2008

Well, I just thought I would tell you about my Mother’s Day, so here it goes.

1. I sang on the praise team at church with Jordan, which was cool ’cause not every mom gets to do that with their daughter.

2. I preached the Sunday morning sermon at church.  A cool thing also ’cause it was the first time that I have spoken on a Sunday morning.  I think it went well.  It should soon be on the church website for all to hear.  If the mood so strikes you can check it out at www.thedwellingplacecc.com .

3. Because of Global Day of Prayer there wasn’t time to go have a nice lunch to celebrate Mom’s Day, so I had Arby’s.  Not my idea of fabulous, especially when what I wanted was Outback.

4. Called my mom to wish her a happy day.

5. My father-in-law called to wish me a happy day.

6. All phone calls were made while John got to take the nap that I wanted and honestly deserved, since I worked for him that morning.  No pay either, I think that I got jipped!  Should I feel taken advantage of?  Hmmm…

7. John leaves the house at 3:30 to go to Global Day of Prayer.  The event is to last from 4 to 6, so I am left to hold down the fort with the kids.  Now can I just say that my idea of Mother’s Day is to spend my day with the man that is directly responsible for making me a mother.  I would love to be with him alone.  I know that sounds awful, but I would like to rest on that day, without a thought for whether my kids are ok or not.

8. John is gone so I am a little ticked off, so I decide to clean and I made my kids help me since it is Mom’s day!  We swept, dusted, washed dishes and clothes, put things away, and cleaned for a long time. 

9. At 6:30 I text John to find out if the event is over and no response.  My friend Ruth comes and gets Jordan and takes her to youth group.  Then I spend the next hour and a half waiting to hear from John.  No response.

10. 7:50 I load the kids up in the van and go get Jordan from youth group.  I drop my friends exchange student daughter off and run through a drive-thru at 8:50 for some dinner for all of us. 

11. 9:10 I get home and John finally home just 10 minutes before us and is on the phone with someone and he doesn’t even get to eat dinner with us.

12.  The boys are put to bed around 10:00, which is really late, and I finally get to sit and talk with John about the day.  I have decided that I am not sure whether my day really stunk or if was “just another day”, which by the way, Mother’s Day should always be special. 

Oh well, I guess I will celebrate next Tuesday night.  John did give me tickets to a Murder Mystery Dinner Cruise for Mother’s Day.  I am excited about that.  I am sure I will letting everyone know all about it next week.

 

Great sisters, funny kids, and beautiful daughters! May 9, 2008

I have decided that I have the greatest sister-in-law on the face of the earth!  Now this is no disrespect to my other two but neither of them have spent hours downloading 80’s music onto 5 different Cd’s.  All of this because she loves me!  That is pretty awesome, and don’t y’all be hating ’cause you know you’re jealous of my new music collection!

John was talking to her today because she had called to comment on the video that he has posted on his blog (www.johnhobbs.wordpress.com) of Nathan doing his “interpretive” dance to one of the great songs on my new Cd’s.  Now I must recommend that you go see it for yourself.  Read the one entitled “Jam on it” and then watch the video.  Nathan is a piece of work and what he did was totally spontaneous.  I put in the Cd and called the boys into the kitchen to listen to the song, because I knew that they would enjoy it.  What you don’t see is the face that Jonathan is making the entire time that Nate is “bustin’ a move”.  That was pretty funny too!

Last night Jordan had a chorus concert and afterwards she and I went to the church to practice for worship on Sunday.  This is only the second time that she has sung on the worship team, but this week she was way more confident.  In the beginning she didn’t really want to but I sorta forced her with the help of the worship leaders wife (she made all kinds of threats).  Jordan is really gifted vocally but has a bit of stage frieight  when its not the entire choir with her.  However last night she really rocked it out with the soprano part while I did the harmony.  It was cool ’cause you could see the confidence building! 

Today though, she had a stinky day.  Just the middle school girl stuff with a “crush” mixed in.  Can I just say this, when you think that you are “in like” with a boy and your really good pal starts to flirt and he flirts back it kinda hurts!  Oh but the upside for mom and dad, she has sworn off boys now!  Ahh, the silver lining to her pain.  She is convinced that no boy has any interest in her.  We know this to not be true, but you try to explain that to a 14 year old!  She isn’t hearing it, because “everybody” likes “everybody” but her.  Yeah right, have you seen my daugher?  She is gorgeous, just don’t tell her that ’cause she is conceited on top of it all! 

Anyway, just my thoughts today on great sisters, funny kids, and beautiful daughters!

A good citizen! May 6, 2008

I have done my civic duty, I voted!  Now I proudly wear my sticker that tells everybody that I did.  This year I did something more then I usually do.  I have a tendency to breeze through the family voters guide and then “guess” at the rest of the races, but this primary I did my due diligence!  I searched through the voters guide, on-line for any information that I could glean and finally made my choices based on what I read or found. 

I particularly took a keen interest in my choice for governor.  I had narrowed my selection to two candidates and really thought that I was going with one in particular, but then I visited their personal websites and found that I had almost passed up on a candidate that stated exactly what I believed about the education system here in NC.  I was so excited by what I read that I immediately emailed him and told him exactly why he was getting my vote and that I expected him to not let me down  and for him to follow through with what he said he was going to do.

I learned a valuable lesson in this process: don’t get caught up in what you think you know about someone, but go and see for yourself because you may find that you can make a difference in casting your vote for the candidate that believes what you believe and is commited to see change. 

At the polls this morning, one of the ladies sitting at the table overheard me talking with someone about being busy at the church and she figured out that I was a pastor’s wife.  Anyway, before I left she asked me if I would be willing to talk with her about something, that she “needed someone to talk to”.  I don’t know what this will lead to and I may be sorry that she has my telephone number, but I guess that is part of my job.  You never know when God has an appointment for you even on election day.

Olivia Sinclair Hobbs is here! May 5, 2008

Olivia is here!  Welcome to the world, new niece of mine!  I don’t have all of the details, but word on the street is that she weighed in at 7 lbs 9 oz, 21 in long.  Way to go Lisa!  I can’t wait to get my hands on her.  I am sure she is beautiful.  Although I have seen a text message photo, we can’t wait to see photos posted on the web!  Congrats, Scott and Lisa, Victoria and Joseph.

 

Blinded by the green nails! May 2, 2008

Envision this with me: acrylic nails at least one inch longer then the finger, a french manicure minus the white tips and think lime green tips, airbrushed designs that cover the entire nail, small crystals placed just so,  top it off a mouth wide open as though flys are the meal of choice, and finally not a smile, not a word just a “duh” look to greet you.  You have now got a pretty good idea of what met me at the drive-thru at McDonalds the other day.  To make matters worse the girl at the second window was just as unpleasant and also said not a word, nor gave me a smile.  

The last laugh is mine though cause being the concerned citizen that I am, I called and tattle-tailed on both girls.  Hopefully this will bring some change.  I at least deserved a smile and a thank you.

Being polite to others shouldn’t take much effort.  I know that for some of us, being friendly is a breeze.  I do believe though, that if you are going to work with the public you should at least know how to act like you are alive.

Just my rant for the day. 

Hmmm… May 1, 2008

What to blog?

1. I have a new niece ready to arrive any day. (Come on Olivia, hurry up!)

2.  The kids only have a month left of school. (Boo Hiss!  I still have stuff to do without them under foot saying that they are bored.)

3. I still have a 20th reunion to pull together and classmates to contact.

4. I am going to my sons class 2-3 days a week to tutor 4th graders in multiplication.  (Something they should have learned last year.  Jonathan has greatly improved so time spent has been worth it.)

5. Jordan and Jonathan made A/B honor roll!  Nathan doesn’t earn those kinds of grades yet.

6. I’m going to a Jonas Brothers concert July 30th with Jordan.  (It’s her reward for making honor roll.  It has also become a bargaining chip for the next semester.  “Make honor roll or I make lots of money selling our premium tickets on ebay!”  Wink, wink!)

7. I haven’t got the wedding cake thing worked out yet.

8. My nephew Sam says that he is going to be the best Tic Tac Toe player ever, because Grandmom is not “letting me win, she is blocking me to teach me how to play”.

9. I recently watched the movie Juno, and was disappointed.  It had its moments but all in all, I was left a tad let down.

10. I am right this minute putting off balancing my check book and paying bills!  I guess I should get on that!