Devotions of a High Heeled Warrior

Have you ever gotten a really bad fortune cookie?  My father-in-law had a joke where he would open his fortune cookie and say, "Help, I'm trapped in a Chinese fortune cookie company!"  Today, We ate at a new Chinese restaurant.  When my son opened his fortune, it said, "Aren't you glad you just enjoyed a really good meal?"  This had me thinking about life.  How many times do you wish you could just open up a fortune cookie and know what was going to happen?  Last week, I had that moment.  Every morning, I heat a bowl of instant oatmeal in the microwave at work.  I set the timer and started working on some files.  I thought I heard the timer go off, but decided to keep working for a bit.  Suddenly, I smelled smoke.  As I rushed to the microwave, I saw smoke pouring out and my bowl melted to the bottom of the microwave.  What you need to understand is that our building is connected with the public schools, so when a smoke alarm...

My family and I have been battling a particularly troubling issue.  Our dog is in heat.  She is almost fifteen years old and should be nice and settled by now, but alas, she is being drawn away by outside influences- a young dog.  You would think she wouldn't be interested, but believe it or not, our dog is a cougar.  At first, we thought he was a bad influence on our sweet, chaste baby.  But after watching her pretending to potty, only to run away with the young dog, we've found that she has a mind of her own.  As you can see in the picture, she feels shame for her actions.  This picture was taken after a day and a half wild spree she took through the neighborhood.  She vandalized neighbors garbage, sniffed strange dogs, and slept over at a boy dog's house!  When we found her, we had to drag her home while she looked longingly over her shoulder at her doggy love.  So when we put her back into the sanctuary of our garage for the second...

Anyone who lives in Arkansas knows that the last couple of years has been a little skimpy when it comes to snow.  My children have done that snow chant late at night with visions of snow days dancing in their heads, only to wake up to completely dry streets and news that the front moved past us.  So when we see a few flakes begin to fall, chaos breaks out.  Can I get an amen from those in Arkansas?  As a pastor, my husband gets the phone calls asking if church will be cancelled.  We usually have to say we haven't even gotten an 1/8 inch of snow yet.  But today was the exception.  Today, snow fell.  Now don't get me wrong.  It wasn't five feet of snow or even one foot of snow.  But it was enough to cancel school.  My children wandered around in a trance not quite sure whether to trust the phone call from the school or not.  But yes, Virginia, there is a snow day.  Now everyone is trapped in their homes hoping that they h...

Let me guess.  You probably thought I am reviewing a new reality series like Naked and Afraid .  Not this time.  My son is a senior this year, so we are facing a daunting task for parents of seniors- applying for scholarships.  Advice for parents of freshman and up:  Start looking now.  There are scholarships out there that pay a lot of money and will take applications from freshman to seniors.  We did not know this, so we have just started the long and exhausting process.  My son has had several successes.  He got to meet President Clinton due to winning second place  in one scholarship contest.  No money but a great picture.  He is going to compete at state in an essay contest he entered.  But currently, he is competing in an oratorical contest.  This is a contest where he has to give a memorized ten minute speech about the Constitution in front of crowds of people.  He did his first practice speech locally....

I just celebrated my (mumble, mumble) birthday.  No one needs to know exactly how old, right?  If my daughter were here, she would squeal and make sure the whole world knew exactly how ancient I am.  See, that's the thing.  Every year, I grow a little older, but in my head, I still feel like that twenty-year-old college student.  It's the sore muscles and achy joints that tell me differently.  The defining moment of knowing the full extent of my age was when I came into my living room  to see one of my daughter's examining a VCR cassette.  I asked what she was doing to which she replied, "I'm trying to find the directions."  So being the good mom that I am, I chose to take a seat and watch the show.  I watched her trying to shove the cassette into the VCR/DVD combo.  Eventually, she gained success and that's when the fun really started.  She stood in front of the television and asked why it wasn't doing anything.  I had ...

Christmas has finally come, and we are faced with signs of it everywhere.  People are rushing to get last minute gifts.  Last night, I noticed that the Walmart parking lot was full, but the Lowe's and Home Depot parking lot was empty.  I told my husband that was because the wives had already bought their husbands gifts three months ago and the men were in Walmart desperately looking for their wives a present.  I can say this because my husband was one of those desperate men.  But now all the gifts are bought and my least favorite thing to do has come- wrapping Christmas gifts.  I've contemplated just giving them in the Amazon boxes they came in but was shot down by my children.  Even though they are teenagers, they still want to unwrap the gifts for Christmas.  I've watched them grow from little toddlers who played more with the boxes than the gifts to young adults that are becoming interested in clothes and grown-up things.  This had me th...

The picture at the left describes the craziness of today.  If you're thinking that it looks like a cheesy Star Wars set, then you are right!  My church Christmas program was today.  I usually write the programs, so I had to pay homage to the newly released Star Wars.  Thus, A Dysfunctional Christmas Dinner-Star Wars Edition was born.  I had to frantically costume our cast, cook a ton of food for the potluck, and wash a gazillion loads of laundry, and quiz my kids because, of course, it is semester test time on Monday and Tuesday.  Late last night, I was cooking 150 cookies, cutting potatoes (with my daughters help- maybe a little guilt was involved), and sewing a gold C3PO suit out of a tablecloth found at a birthday party I had been to earlier that day.  Yes, that is me in the shiny, gold suit.  I was hot gluing black yarn to a pair of headphones for Princess Lea, cutting off reindeer ears and replacing with green felt to make Yoda.  I eve...