Guilt

Okay, Here's My Deal...

It is 6:46 in the morning. I have been up since 5:50. I have been trying to decide what to do since then and now I have waited so long, the decision is pretty much made for me. Dumbass.

My son has been having diaper problems for about a month now and we went ot the doctor for the second time yesterday--I left school early to take him. We are waiting now on tests and cultures from his stool sample. He has no other symptoms and otherwise is "fine" and the doctor said he could go to the sitter today with no problems...just in case he said he needed to stay home, I left school yesterday with lesson plans laid out for today so I would not have to drag myself in at 6 to get it done.

Well, I thought last night that I might take the day and stay home, but take him to the sitter for part of the day and use the time to clean a little around here--part of my deal is that I am feeling a little guilty about the state of our home...one of the things theyare testing for is E. coli SIMPLY BECAUSE if they don't rule that out before they try anitbiotics, it could throw my son into kidney failure...so right away I think to myself, "Oh my gosh, what if it is E. coli and it is because I ahve been slack about cleaning up in the kitchen or at the table? I have got to get things cleaned up!" Even though I know that the chances of him having it are slim because no one else in the house is showing symptoms...but parent guilt is right there nudging me to feel anxious. Plus, we have a dog and a cat and I worry that somehow my son got into the litter box or into dog poo outside and now has some weird thing from them...AAUUGGHH!!

But, then part of me says I am over reacting and I can clean this weekend and he is fine so go to work...then I feel guilty that I am sending him when he might benefit from a day to snuggle and play iwth mommy...

And part of me, the loyal employee, which in reality in my district right now doesn't mean much, thinks, "well, I already know of at least 4 teachers in my building alone who are gone and we are short on subs and now I have waited so long that they may not be able to find one..." But, really, is that my problem? Or the districts? Then, I remember that they (the superintendant and the board) are starting to get really picky on things like child sick days...people are having to prove now that indeed their child was sick enough to warrant you staying home. Well, I ahve adoctor's note stating I was in the office yesterday...but if we stay home because I want to be close to him and we go outside to play and a board member would drive by my house...AAUUGGHH!!

It is just crappy that you ahve to worry about all of this when all you want to do is do what you think is best for your kid. Now, I am pretty much forced to go to school and feel the guilt all day in the pit of my stomach and wonder if I did the right thing.

BUt, my husband brings up a good point...what if you are getting ready for school and it is after 6--which is the "magic" time to have called for a sub by--and your kid starts to get sick? DOn't you call and let the district worry about what to do? Yes...but this is different. Sort of. I guess.

This just sucks.

$$ Is Not Everything

Okay, Here's My Deal...

Pastor talked today about something that I guess in my heart, I knew, but never really understood.

We all know that tithing and offerings are seeds to sow into God's kingdom. And, what we sow, only that shall we reap...so if we sow little, and grumble about it, then we will only reap little and grumble about that. Vice versa--if we sow abundantly and are joyful about it, then we will reap abundantly and be joyous from that. So far, nothing new, right? So, here is the deal, and I think that the Spirit has been working this in me and I just needed to hear it again to sink in my brain...

Our entire life is a seed to be sown into God's kingdom. Sure, the tithing and offering and money things are important and we should not forget those. However, it is our LIFE that God desires that we sow into His kingdom. By investing in prayer and helping others and using our gifts He gave us as He intended us to use them, we sow a much larger seed into His kingdom than we can ever imagine!! Pastor even tied this into the Sermon on the Mount...when Jesus taught to turn the other cheek, give our shirt and walk an extra mile, He was not teaching that we are to be floormats to be trod upon or wimps that do not stand up for ourselves. It was a lesson in sowing and reaping.

• Turn the other cheek...The person who slaps us is sowing a harvest of violence in their lives and that is what he will reap. By offering the other cheek, we do not plant another seed of violence, but rather a seed of forgiveness and compassion...and that is what we will reap.
• Give our shirt...The person who steals our coat is sowing a seed of thievery and dishonesty in their lives and that is what they will reap. By offering our shirt to him as well, we do not plant another seed of thievery, but rather a seed of generosity and giving...and that is what we will reap.
• Walk a second mile...The person who makes us walk a mile is sowing a seed of slavery and bondage in his life and that is what they will reap. By walking another mile, we do not sow an additional seed of slavery, but rather a seed of freedom and restoration...and that is what we will reap.
  

Better Understanding

Okay, Here's My Deal...

While I don't understand God's timing, I trust that He knows what He is doing.

Remember a few posts back that I had applied for, interviewed for and really wanted a job in a neighboring school district? And remember that I did not get the job and even though I was disappointed, my outlook was, "Well, there is something left unfinished or not done that God needs me to do where I am."

Now I know what it is...

Little did I know that He was preparing me for a much bigger and important job than where and what I would be teaching. He knew that He was preparing me to bring another child into the world. That's right...the very day I returned to the job I wanted out of I found out that I was pregnant with my second child!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God knew that this was going to happen and knew that me drving 13 blocks to school as opposed to 20 miles in the winter time would be better. He knew that already knowing the ins and outs of the job I was in would be better than trying to learn a whole new system. I am sure He knew a lot more than that as well, but those two facts alone were enough for me to be convinced.
So, today was the first visit to the OB and it went well. I am about 8 and a half weeks along with a due date of Apirl 28...but since I had a C-section with my son, I will have a repeat with this once and they loike to do that in the 39th week, so it looks like maybe the 20th or so will be the actual birthdate. We took our son to the appointment and even though he is too young to really understand, we feel that if we take to each one that maybe by the time it gets closer he will have a small understaning of what is going to change in his life. It is too early to hear a heartbeat, but we got to see a "cardiac flutter" on the ultrasound. They did one this early to detrmine an accurate due date so that we could discuss options ofr surgery dates.

Anyway, it is all very exciting and I could go on and on, but I won't. It is late and I am tired from my big day.

Emeril and Rachel Ray We Ain't

Okay, Here's My Deal...

Remember the pancetta we searched the Earth for in my last post? Yeah, we used it tonight to make the "Carbonara" recipe that began the whole quest. It was not pretty in the kitchen. My husband at one time said, "I'm making some poor Italian guy roll over in his grave right now."

First, you need to understand that I am by no means in my element in the kitchen. I am a make it from a box or a can kind of woman myself. I make regular calls to my mom to find out how to do things that most typical women know how to do. My husband is better, but his deal is that he is sometimes impatient...especially if anything technical goes wrong.

So, to start with, my husband is so excited about finally getting to cook this dish that he puts the spaghetti into the water before the water is boiling...so he takes it out to let the water boil. Then as he is opening the garlic bud? flower? big thing? we both say, "Does one clove mean the whole thing or the little things insdie the big thing?" One call to his mother and we were set on the correct garlic capacity.

Next, as he is reading the steps he says, "Egg yolk...is that the whole thing?" I tell him no, it is just the yellow part and he says, "How do you do that?!" Luckily, this is one thing I do know how to do in the kitchen, so I separated the yolks from the whites for him.

Moving on...as he is nearing the end, he asks where our cheese grater is and I tell him I am not so sure we even have one, which is not convenient because he bought a hunk of romano cheese. So, I am desperately looking for a cheese grater when I yank out one of the drawers and pull it off of the track so when I put it back it almost all tumbled down into the cabinet below. Luckily I caught it in time.

At the same time, my husband has put in the pasta with the sauce and is wondering how on Earth he is supposed to stir it when there is so much...as he drops some on the floor...I suggest he gets the tongs we use to get our hot dogs out of the water when we boil them. This is the point where he said he was making some Italian man roll over in is grave.

As he stirred, I found a somewhat suitable substitute for a cheese grater--a half circle plastic pasta strainer. I furiously am grating the cheese, which I am sure is prolonged by the utensil I was using...my husband is just chuckling to himself saying this has just been a clusterf**k from the getgo. He tasted a bit of the long-sought after holy grail of meats, the pancetta and said, "Yeah, pancetta? It is pretty much just bacon." and I just laughed.

We sit down to eat and another issue arises...it is a little warm for my husband. Not temperature warm but spicy warm. Keep in mind that the mild sauce from Taco Bell is way too hot for him. This recipe had a teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes. He was pouring sweat, but managed to eat a healthy portion of the long-awaited Carbonara with genuine pancetta that tasted like plain old bacon you can buy at Aldi's.

Here is the game plan for the next meal of Carbonara: (1) buy a cheese grater (2) use just a pinch or two of the red pepper flakes (3) don't make an almost three hour round trip for pancetta.

Emeril and Rachel...yeah, don't worry about any competition from us. Your jobs are secure.

Pancetta and Chocolate Lasagna

Okay, Here's My Deal...

We live in Iowa...Small town Iowa. Not exactly the cousine mecca of the world. My husband loves Rachel Ray from the Food Network. The other day, he was inthe dentist's office and was looking through Good Housekeeping and found a recipe of hers he thought looked great and wanted to make it...so he went to our local grocery store to get his ingredients. He calls me and says that they have never heard of pancetta and don't have it!! (Keep in mind he had not, either until he read the recipe.) [For those of you who don't know, it is Italian bacon...rolled up and not cured but aged] So he came home with nothing and we ate just stuff around the house.

This began his quest...he called every meat market (yeah, all two of them around here) and grocery store within 20 miles and found no pancetta. He found it on the internet to buy and have shipped, but thought it was a little pricey. I called my friend MKM, whose husband does all of the cooking in their house to see if he ever used it...now, MKM was once known to order "orange roughage" at a dinner one night instead of orange roughy (a kind of fish) so I knew I may not be too sucessful. Well, he had and she thought he bought it at this store in a university town just an hour and a half from us. I called, and yes, they carried it!

So, on Labor Day, we planned a trip to the city to get pancetta and I said if we were going all that way, we were eating at the Olive Garden...did I mention that we do not live in a cousine mecca?

I was all psyched up to eat salad and pasta but not too much because I absolutley inhale their chocolate lasagna dessert...except, yeah, they no longer have the chocolate lasagna!!!!!! I was just crushed and felt cheated. I settled for chocolate gelato (umm, it is ice cream) with caramel syrup and dark chocolate chunks sprinkled on top. Don't get me wrong, this was good, but it was no chocolate lasagna, my friend.

So, it was trip of agony and ecstasy...bittersweet, really.